Supreme Court seeks DGHS response on “manipulation” of medical seats

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The Supreme Court today sought the response of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) on a girl student’s complaint of large-scale manipulation, hacking and tampering of ongoing online counselling for admission to the all-India seats for post-graduate medical courses.

A bench of justices H L Gokhale and Ranjana Prakash Desai initially asked the DGHS to file a counter-affidavit on the issue, but later allowed counsel Rekha Pandey to “seek instructions” from the directorate on it.

Mr Pandey, told the bench that since the matter was “too technical,” she would like to seek instructions from the DGHS on the contents of the allegations in the petition.

Petitioner Pankila Mittal through counsel Naushad Ahmad Khan has alleged that besides her, a large number of top rankers who had opted for MD/MS courses were shocked to find that due to the hacking and manipulation, they have been allotted seats in diploma courses, which are far inferior choices for their ranks.

The duration course of MD/MS course is three years, whereas, the diploma is of two years duration. There are about 5,500 PG seats for the present academic year of 2012—13, under all India quota from states.Pankila, who had secured 692 marks at the national competitive exams said she had appeared for the online counselling held on January 8 conducted by nodal agency AIIMS and had opted for as many as 24 choices in the unreserved category.

In the first round of counselling, she was allotted a seat in Seth G S Medical College, Mumbai and on May 16, she completed all formalities of admission on the basis of her rank.The petitioner claimed she had specifically sought MD courses with preferential choice of MD in obstetrics and gynaecology or dermatology and venereal or leprosy.

But to her shock, she was allotted “Diploma in Venerealogy & Dermatology” which she had never wanted, the petition said.It said though the official date for publication of results was June 12, many of them had come to know about it on June 11 itself, unofficially via social networking sites through uploaded PDF files.

“Since the result was availed by social networking sites unofficially, irresistibly we can reach the conclusion that the software prepared by the NIC is not foolproof /tamper—free software, prone to hacking /tampering /manipulation /addition /alteration /deletion /modification.

“Many meritorious students who were allotted with provisional allotment letters in institutions at the first round in MD speciality courses, when opted their choice for upgrade in the round 2 and 3 were allotted to diploma courses which are staring at the ex—facie records” it said.

The petition cited the instances of Sudhansu Shekhar Das, Uttam Kumar Lenka and Vinya Kumar Muttagi, who were allotted courses they never opted for.Pankila urged the apex court to ensure that she was not deprived of her originally allotted seat and also wanted the court “to pass any such further order/s as this hon’ble court may deem fit and proper”.

 

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