Supreme Court slaps 10 lakh on medical college for denying PG student admission

The Supreme Court on Monday directed a medical college in Telangana to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to a doctor who was wrongly denied admission into the post graduate medical course.

A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court termed the action of the college “deplorable” as despite paying the fees, the aggrieved student MS Koumudi was denied admission that led to loss of a precious academic year. The bench headed by Justice LN Rao directed the compensation to be paid in four weeks and asked the college to allocate a seat for the said student in MS (General Surgery) course for the next academic year.

The college that indulged in this act was Kamineni Academy of Medical Science and Research Centre, Hyderabad.

The college was also found suspect in filling up the seat, provisionally offered to Koumudi, with a person ranked 2000 places below in the merit list on August 11. The bench wondered that the college was duty bound to first contact Koumudi and on her refusal, offer the seat to the next in line on the merit list.

Recording it’s displeasure with the college, the bench, also comprising Justices Hemant Gupta and Ajay Rastogi said, “The manner in which Respondent No.2-College acted in depriving admission to Respondent No.1 (student) and giving admission to Respondent No.5 on 11.08.2020 is deplorable. The Managements of the Medical Colleges are not expected to indulge in such illegalities in making admissions to Medical Courses.”

Fortunately, the plight of the student was recognised even by the Telangana High Court where Koumudi had approached. The HC directed the National Medical Commission and college to allot an additional seat to the student in this academic year. The NMC approached the apex Court against this order as it will result in creating additional seats.

The Court agreed with NMC. It said, “The annual intake capacity is fixed by the Medical Council of India (now NMC) which has to be strictly adhered. Admissions to Medical Colleges cannot be permitted to be made beyond the sanctioned annual intake capacity of a medical college as has been repeatedly held by this Court. “

Koumudi appeared in the National Eligibility Entrance Test for PG medical speciality course admission in January this year and was provisionally allotted a MS (General Surgery) seat in the Kamineni Academy based on her rank. The last date for admission was extended from July 30 to August 30 in view of the pandemic. Koumudi claimed that she visited the college with her father on July 29 and deposited the fees on the same day.