Illegal admissions: Medical college to pay Rs 10 lakh each to 150 students

The Supreme Court on Thursday directed a medical college in Lucknow to grant compensation of Rs 10 lakh each to the 150 students it had admitted in the MBBS course without formal permission from the government, according to the Times of India.

The apex court has also slapped a fine to the tune of Rs 25 lakh on the medical college. The college, run by the GRCG Memorial Trust, was one of the 32 institutions that the Medical Council of India had barred from admitting medical students till 2019 due to substandard facilities.

The court pulled up Allahabad High Court (HC) for allowing illegal admissions, calling it a case of “judicial indiscipline and impropriety” and banned the medical college from further granting admissions for the academic year of 2018-2019. In September, the High Court had allowed the college to admit the 150 students despite the medical council concluding that it had indulged in “unethical and callous” practices.

The apex court dubbed the incident as “most unfortunate” and hinted at taking administrative action against the college.

The case came under the scanner in September when one judge of a two-member Allahabad high court bench made handwritten corrections to its original order to allow the medical college to admit students to MBBS course for 2017-18. The high court’s revised order on September 4 came eight days after the Supreme Court barred it from allowing the Lucknow-based GCRG Institute of Medical Science to admit fresh students for the academic session 2017-18. The Medical Council of India had moved SC against the high court’s revised order. Senior counsel Vikas Singh, who appeared for MCI, told the apex court that the September 1 order was passed without giving the council time to file its reply.