Students granted MBBS admission under NRI quota by taking capitation fees: Maharashtra Student Union moves SC

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 18: A member of Maharashtra Navnirman Vidyarthi Sena has filed a petition in the Supreme Court over misuse of NRI Quota seats. As per the petitioners, Indian students are given MBBS admission for seats reserved for NRI students by taking capitation fees.

The writ petition was filed after repeated appeals were made by the MNS student wing to the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER), admission conducting body of Maharashtra state, requesting transparency in MBBS admissions under NRI quota.

The court has been challenged by Kalpesh Yadav, president of MNS student claiming that the admission of other category students under NRI quota is in direct breach of Supreme Court order passed in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 689/2017. As per the SC order, the seats falling under NRI quota must be utilized by bona fide NRIs only and their children or wards.

According to Mr Yadav, “ The criteria set up by the court in 2017 are not followed by most medical colleges. I have requested that seats staying vacant under NRI quota should be converted into regular seats and filled through the regular admission process.” The petitioner also mentions the notice issued by Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) on May 25, as per which the conversion of students’ category can be only be done with prior permission from the committee.

The proposition has been made by taking examples of two colleges MIMER Medical College and Hospital and Kashibai Navale Medical College where the fees of the 15% seats reserved for NRI student has been kept the same but students from other categories were offered admission. Despite the huge number of vacant seats after the third round of counselling, the seats were not converted into state quota. Undoubtedly, the reason for not converting the NRI quota seats into state quota seats is the exorbitant fees charged for each seat. In case of MIMER Medical College, out of the 20 seats, only three seats were filled by NRI students while the others were filled against the court orders of 2017.

Origin of the controversy

This year, in the state, out of the 248 medical seats which remain unclaimed after the third round of counselling, 243 seats are available at private medical colleges. Of these 243 seats, 217 seats are institutional quota seats i.e. seats reserved for NRIs. On this Pravin Shingare earlier said, Director of DMER Maharashtra said, “ Most seats that go vacant are from NRI or institutional quota (15% of total seats) because private institutes charge a lot of money for these seats.”

The dean of MIMERS Medical College, Dr Rajendra Gupta has also reportedly said, “We converted NRI seats to management quota and invited applications on August 27 itself. Based on merit, we allotted all vacant seats by August 31. We didn’t need to re-work fees to fill vacant seats.”

With the conversion of NRI seats into management quota seats, the fees were not changed because in Maharashtra state the seats of private colleges are divided into 85% State Quota seats and 15% Institutional quota.

Acknowledging the controversy Pravin Shingare has said, “We had not taken any action as the college had not violated any norms. If it is shown that we have failed to take any action then we will initiate the same against the colleges mentioned.”

Plight of Students

By converting the institutional quota seats into management quota seats implies the students who are less meritorious but can manage to bring more fees are granted admission. NEET as the eligibility cum entrance test for medical education was introduced so that country can produce better students by giving preference to meritorious students and not financially sound students.