Questions arise as PG seats fall vacant at medical college

MUMBAI: Can 18 doctors arrive at the same decision at the same time, specially if that decision costs each of them Rs 1.2 crore?! That is what appears to have occurred at the NY Tasgaonkar Institute of Medical Science, a college in Karjat which was allowed to start postgraduate medical courses for the first time this year.

The institute was approved for 36 PG seats and entered the state's admission counselling process only in Round 3. By the end of that round, all 18 seats under the institutional and NRI quotas, for which higher fees are charged, were shown as filled, while four subsidised state quota seats out of 18, remained vacant.


When the next counselling round opened, the college did not admit candidates under the institutional or NRI quotas, citing zero availability. Days later, on Feb 20, it moved the Bombay high court saying all 18 students admitted under the quotas had cancelled their seats, and sought permission to fill the seats directly at the college level.

"It is submitted that Petitioner college was listed for admission when the 2 CAP rounds were already over. In short, Petitioner college was listed for admission only in the 3rd CAP Round. Since Petitioner college was listed for the first time for postgraduate course, there was very minimum response from the students and at the end of 3rd round out of 36, only 7 students selected in the 3rd round of admission reported and/or joined Petitioner college. Out of 36 seats, nearly 29 seats thus remained vacant," said the petition, a copy of which is with TOI.

The court granted the request. As per admission rules released in the state CET Cell brochure, PG medical admissions in Maharashtra are conducted only online by the state CET Cell, with no provision for institutional-level discretion.

Parent representative Sudha Shenoy said the college had told the court it had received late permission to admit students and hence 29 seats were vacant, without disclosing to the court that all seats had been filled in the preceding Round 3. The state’s legal response to this, she said, fell short.

A senior official overseeing admissions at the state's CET Cell, Dr Siddhesh Nar, said the college emailed them on Feb 26 stating that 18 institutional and NRI candidates had cancelled admissions on Feb 24 and 25, attaching cancellation forms. "We asked the Directorate of Medical Education and Research to conduct an inquiry and submit a report to the state CET Cell." The DMER report has been sent to the CET CEll, though details have not been shared.

The perfectly timed collective withdrawal of all the doctors, said experts, requires scrutiny. As one source put it, answers are needed on IP addresses used for admission registrations, the banks that issued demand drafts, how and why were doctors' original documents returned after retention of admission, and the penalties actually collected.

Vacant PG seats that can be filled directly by a private medical college without govt supervision can raise serious concerns about the admission process. Multiple calls and messages to the college met with a stock response: "Please message". Questions messaged to the college met with no response.