Maharashtra NEET UG Counselling: HC asks medical college to admit student denied MBBS seat in fee row

MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court (HC) has directed a private medical college in Maharashtra to admit an aspirant on a supernumerary MBBS seat after ruling that the candidate was wrongfully denied admission.

The division bench of justices AS Chandurkar and Rajesh Patil, in a verdict last week, held that Prasad Mashalkar, a student from Dharshiv (Osmanabad) district, was refused enrollment on an institutional (management) quota seat by Terna Medical College at Navi Mumbai for “no fault on his part”.

The court also rejected the college’s claim that Mashalkar sought benefits under the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category and that he was unwilling to pay the requisite fees, as it noted that the candidate had, in fact, carried bank demand drafts (DD) to the institute, indicating his willingness to pay the fee amount.

Maharashtra NEET Counselling: ‘Overcharging’ claim

As reported earlier by Careers360, Mashalkar had alleged that the Navi Mumbai college had denied him the management quota seat, which was allocated by the state Common Entrance Test (CET) Cell, the Maharashtra body responsible for conducting NEET UG 2024 counselling process.

The petitioner had said that when he visited the college on October 31 with demand drafts for the requisite management quota fee, which is capped at three times the regular tuition fee, the institute officials demanded he pay five times as much instead and eventually denied him the spot for various “extraneous reasons”.

Mashalkar, who had said that his family had to arrange the fee amount by selling their agricultural land, took the issue up with the Maharashtra CET Cell as well as the Fee Regulating Authority (FRA). While FRA’s Grievance Committee found the college to be in the wrong, it forwarded the matter to the state Admission Regulating Authority (ARA) for further action.

In HC, the college asserted that there was “no deliberate act” depriving Mashalkar of admission, arguing that he was unwilling to pay the required fees under the institutional quota. It also said that the petitioner did not return to the college when he was asked to bring his parents to submit anti-ragging documents.

The college sought dismissal of the plea, pointing out that the November 5 cut-off date for undergraduate medical admissions had already passed and that there were no vacant seats.

The National Medical Commission (NMC) has since extended the admissions till December 5 as it’s holding a special stray vacancy round to fill up the unclaimed seats.

The court refused to accept the college’s contentions. “Considering the fact that the petitioner was armed with the requisite college fees payable under the Institutional Quota, on the principle of preponderance of probabilities, we do not find that a student who has secured admission in a Medical College and has arranged for the necessary fees prior to the cut-off date would not take admission on the allotted seat,” reads the judgment.

The Bombay HC also highlighted on the observations made by the FRA’s grievance panel that the college had even demanded the second-year MBBS fees along with the first year charges at the time of admission, though the college disputed this claim in court.

The bench relied on several past Supreme Court orders to arrive at its decision to create a supernumerary seat to accommodate Mashalkar. It noted that the candidate had approached the authorities before the admission deadline and also promptly moved court, adding it hasn’t been a month since the cut-off date.

Maharashtra NEET UG Counselling: Complaints galore

The state-level NEET UG counselling in Maharashtra this year has been marred by several complaints about wrongful admission refusals by medical, dental and AYUSH colleges. In response to the allegations of financial misconduct in IQ or management quota admissions at 13 private medical and dental colleges, the state medical commissioner, a month ago, had initiated an inquiry.

The ARA, too, had taken cognizance of around 25 complaints registered during the regular admission rounds and had directed around a dozen institutes to enrol the aggrieved students. More students were allegedly refused admissions during the second stray vacancy round of NEET counselling, which was carried out by individual colleges instead of the centralised online counselling, thanks to an interim order by HC.

The activists believe that the eleventh-hour change in the admission process paved the way for colleges to indulge in malpractices. They have also faulted the admission authorities for turning a blind eye to many of the complaints.

“The CET Cell should have intervened in time to provide justice to Mashalkar and other aggrieved students,” said Dharmendra Mishra, a Mumbai-based lawyer and FRA member.