HC questions Vidyapeeth's selection process

MUMBAI: Even as the controversy over medical admissions sizzles, the state government has noticed discrepancies in the functioning of the medical college run by Bharatiya Vidyapeeth, a deemed university controlled by industries minister Patangrao Kadam.
Despite this, Kadam was on Wednesday appointed to a three-member committee to decide the fee structure of private medical colleges.The most glaring discrepancy emerged in the Vidyapeeth’s common entrance test (CET) for its MBBS course earlier this year. A student who stood third in the Vidyapeeth’s CET, scoring 98 per cent, managed only the 21,910th position in the state government’s CET.
Another student, who got 92 per cent in the CET, got only 42 per cent in MH-CET. These instances prompted the Mumbai high court last week to question the fairness and credibility of the university’s selection process.
The court made the observation in response to a petition filed by the Akhil Bhartiya Grahak Panchayat questioning the deemed university’s jurisdiction to conduct the entrance test.
Government officials also said that students who were admitted in the non-resident Indian or revenue compensation quota, paid a wide range of fees. So, while Shilpa Srivastava paid Rs 26.49 lakh and Shweta Gupta paid Rs 18.49 lakh, others were charged amounts ranging from Rs 59,000 to Rs 11.49 lakh towards fees.
The university explained that the fees were decided after discussions with candidates and guardians to establish their financial position. This also explains w h y wh i l some students were made to pay for a single year, others had to cough up fees for the entire course. Observing that the admission process lacked probity and transparency, the court remarked that the variation in fees suggested the total absence of objective norms and procedures.
It also said that the deemed university appeared to have brazenly exploited its position. On its part, the university argued that it was entitled to charge five times the regular fee in this category and denied that the fees were collected in a dubious manner. Kadam’s university runs 17 educational institutions, including colleges of medicine and surgery, dental, nursing, Ayurveda, law, pharmacy, physical education and bio-technology.