Thiruvananthapuram: Justice J. M. James, who headed the Admission Supervisory Committee (ASC), showed rare determination to expose fraudulent admissions to medical colleges though he got little support from the establishment. On Thursday, when his stand was vindicated by the apex court, which stayed the regularisation ordinance and ordered the expulsion of 180 medicos, Justice James was humility personified. "I do not want to comment, I didn't do it for personal glory," he said. Of the two colleges that admitted students violating norms Karuna Medical College has a sanctioned intake of 100 seats, of which admissions to 30 seats were found violative by the committee.
As per the prospectus, there are 17 seats on general merit, 33 under the SEBC/SC/ST/Muslim quota and 35 the management quota. While the ASC scrutinised the online applications of 15 seats, it found that there were no supporting documents and as such the category of applicants could only be ascertained from their statements alone. The ASC said in the order that this was not legally sufficient. It also said that the non-creamy layer certificates were to be produced for claiming appropriate admission relaxation for some SEBC candidates.
Hence, such applicants cannot be accepted, as belonging to the SEBC category, the committee had held. It had also set aside the entire admission of 150 candidates by the Kannur Medical College for deliberately violating the orders of the committee and the court. The ASC pointed out that the Kannur Medical College failed to maintain the triple tests laid down by the SC, thus violating orders of both. In its order, the ASC has asked the Kerala University of Health Sciences registrar not to register the list of 150 students forwarded to the University by the Medical College for the 2016-17 academic year.
As per the directions of the court, the ASC scrutinised the entire admissions made by the Medical College. Though the college was directed to make available all documents, the ASC said that the authorities failed to produce them. While scrutinising the ‘online application’ forms, the applications showed that they were not actual ‘online applications’. The forms did not show the name of the Medical College to which the applications were made. They also did not carry the photograph of the applicant, signature or application date.
