KANNUR: The 180 students of Kannur and Karuna Medical Colleges now face an uncertain future after the ordinance brought in by the state government to regularise their admission was cancelled by the apex court.The order is viewed as a major setback to the government as the out-of-the-way methods employed to regularise the admissions was described by the committees — entrusted to look into the admissions — as having “flouted all norms”.
It was to monitor the flaws in admission and flouting of norms by the management by squeezing money from the students for admission to medical and engineering seats the monitoring committees with Justices Muhammad, J M James and R Rajendra Babu as chairpersons were set up.
The committees had initiated stringent action against the management intervention in the admission process by charging huge amount as capitation fee and tinkering with the merit list of the students. However, it has been pointed out the colleges circumvented the norms by misinterpreting rules while giving admission.
The James committee had explicitly ordered the managements to receive applications for management and NRI seats through the college’s website on the basis of the NEET results. But the two colleges had shown scant respect for the order and pressed ahead with the admissions. Even after repeated reminders, they were not ready to sign the agreement with the government nor willing to receive the applications online. Instead, they admitted students on their own without centralised counselling.
When all the other colleges were ready to publish the list after correcting the anomalies, these two colleges persisted with their list even after the ultimatum. A probe by the James committee found norms were flouted to give admission to many students. Following this, the committee had nixed the secret list prepared by the college managements.
Though the colleges had challenged this before the High Court and also the Supreme Court, it proved a futile exercise. Though the students and parents too had approached the apex court, the outcome was no different.
Though the students had continued their studies, they were not allowed to appear for the exams. It was at this stage the government had decided to pass an ordinance to regularise the admissions of these students. But the Medical Council of India (MCI) had challenged this before the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, 13 of the 150 students of the Kannur Medical College had obtained TC from the college. The competent authority that had verified the certificates of the remaining students found the certificates of 19 students are incomplete. The remaining 118 students took the matter to the Medical University. But they had challenged the ordinance before the court. The interim verdict came on Thursday.But the students and parents argue their side of the story should also be heard. The case will again be taken up in May.