HC dismisses candidates’ plea

GUWAHATI, March 20 – The judiciary today gave a boost to the State Government’s initiative to root out the anomalies in the admission process in the medical colleges of the State. A division bench of the Gauhati High Court comprising Chief Justice J Chelameswar and Justice Hrishikesh Roy dismissed the writ appeal of candidates found guilty of using fraudulent means for securing admission in the all-India quota seats for the MBBS courses.Though anomalies in connection with admission into the medical colleges of the State were alleged since long, the irregularities first came to official notice in 2006, when three students were found to have used forged documents to secure admission into the postgraduate courses under all-India quota seats. Taking a serious view of the matter, the State Government had constituted an inquiry committee to look into all the irregularities in admission under all-India quota seats for MBBS courses starting from the year 2002 to 2005. The probe revealed that nine students had fraudulently obtained admission and the State Government immediately referred the cases to the Directorate of Health Services, New Delhi. Subsequent developments revealed that five more students had taken recourse to fraud and a show- cause notice was issued to all the 14 students.The case was handed over to the CBI also and the investigating agency had submitted before the court that all the admissions were fraud.However, some of these students filed writ petitions in the Gauhati High Court challenging the State Government. Though a single bench of judge IA Ansari had dismissed the writ petitions, a few had filed a writ appeal.Acting on the writ appeal, the Chief Justice observing that by securing undeserved benefits, these students have deprived other deserving candidates.The appellants were represented by senior advocate V Hansaria, who is also the president of Legal Assistance Forum. The Central Government was represented by H Rahman, the CBI by DK Das and the State Government by standing counsel D Saikia.
By A City Correspondentwww.theassamtribune.com