The future of 519 medical students are in soup as the Medical education regulator Medical Council of India (MCI) recently cancelled their admissions owing to the fact that they were directly taken in through the colleges cutting off the counselling procedure.
MBBS students enrolled in 17 colleges who are in trouble now, have been attending classes from last three months with dreams of becoming a doctor and this news is a hard blow for them as they need to go through the grind all over again and write the NEET exam.
According to MCI, the colleges admitted students directly, violating a Supreme Court order of September 28, 2016, directing the state government to hold centralised counselling and allot colleges to students based on their performance in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).
The issue of direct admission was unearthed by KK Aggarwal, president, Indian Medical Association, a body of medical practitioners who filed an RTI seeking response of MCI.
KK Aggarwal said, "While scrutinising the admissions process, we found that 17 colleges in three states have given direct admission to 519 students in violation of the SC order."
"MCI should initiate strict action against the colleges for playing with the careers of hundreds of students and maligning the medical profession," KK Aggarwal adds.
It is learnt that this is the first time when large numbers of students have been asked to leave the MBBS programme.
Direct admissions through NEET Exam have been given in the following states
- Uttar Pradesh: 14 colleges (481 students)
- Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu: One college each (38 students in total)
Students on the other hand are irritated by this confusion as they has qualified the tough National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) entrance test to get into medical colleges and now need to do it a second time again.
Although the NEET marks of some students who have been directly admitted are higher than those who had got admissions through counselling, these students will now be subjected to stress because of this decision.