BENGALURU: Referring to the recent income tax raids of medical colleges due to an alleged medical seat scam, Deputy Chief Minister Dr CN Ashwath Narayan, who is also the Minister for Medical Education said, “Appropriate action will be taken against those involved in the alleged medical seat blocking scam.”
The I-T department on Thursday raided Sri Siddhartha Medical College and Sri Siddhartha Institute of Medical Sciences, belonging to former Deputy CM Dr G Parameshwara, as well as Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, belonging to Congress leader Jalappa, for allegedly selling seats to undeserving candidates. The minister was addressing media persons on the sidelines of an event at the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Health Sciences (RGUHS).
The DyCM said, “The raids and the BJP government are not related. The raids happened due to discrepancies in the disclosure of income. The department does it based on reliable information. Wherever rules are broken, we will take necessary action to put an end to seat blocking.”
When asked about the students of Bethel group of Institutions approaching the court seeking to write their exams despite the institution being disaffiliated from RGUHS, the DyCM said that the administrations did not give relief to the students on humanitarian grounds.
The disaffiliation happened earlier this year after cases of fake marks cards and other forgeries surfaced. The court ordered the university to allow students to write the exams.
“More than the students, we must go after the culprits involved in forging documents. The scam is happening at a lower level and must be escalated. I will bring this up with the CID, DG and Police Commissioner from our department. We will not compromise although the students should not be denied opportunities for others’ fault,” he said. “There has been a casual approach to this issue so far and there has been no fear of the law,”he added.
RGUHS V-C Sacchidanand said, “We will not consider these people as students of RGUHS. We are only following court orders, thereby allowing students to write their exams. However, we are contesting against the order and do not intend to evaluate their answer sheets. These exams were on nursing, physiotherapy and allied sciences.”