Delhi HC asks IIPM and UGC to settle recognition issue

New Delhi, June 23 The Delhi High Court Monday asked the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) and the University Grants Commission (UGC) to amiably settle the dispute arising out of the regulatory panel's decision to put the institute under 'derecognised university' list.

The IIPM moved the court after the UGC, in its website, listed it under the 'dercognised' universities. The IIPM stated that it does not give any degrees and the move by the regulatory commission could be interpreted as it being a 'fake' insititute.

'You consult your respective clients (IIPM and UGC) on this issue and inform the court about possible settlement,' a vacation bench of Justice Rajiv Shakdher said while posting the matter June 27.

IIPM counsel A.s. Chandiok said: 'We just impart financial training and do not give out any degrees. But such a categorisation is not correct and could give out wrong signals.'

Munna Bhais in West Bengal Medical Entrance ?

Bengal mulls CBI probe into medical entrance test scam

Kolkata, July 24 (IANS) The West Bengal government might order a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into a racket in which senior medical students from other states have impersonated medical career aspirants here and sat for their entrance exams.

"A Criminal Investigation Department (CID) probe is already on into the scam. If needed we might order a CBI probe," West Bengal Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy told reporters Tuesday.

"The CID has progressed with the probe but if needed we would order a CBI probe," Roy said when asked if the government was contemplating a probe by the federal agency.

In the medical entrance scam that resembled the wacky world of Bollywood film "Munnabhai MBBS", it was found that senior medical students, mostly from Uttar Pradesh, would sit for the entrance exam of medical career aspirants for a fee.

Before the investigation was handed over to the West Bengal CID, the detective department of Kolkata Police had arrested three people Saturday - Mihir Jha and Ranvijay Pathak of Bihar and Ayan Mukhopadhyay of Hooghly district in West Bengal - in connection with the racket.

Jha had passed his MBBS from Calcutta Medical College and Hospital and is now a student of the postgraduate medical course in the SSKM Hospital here. He had secured 12th position in the postgraduate medical entrance exam.

Later, a 25-year-old woman, who allegedly worked as an agent for several distance-learning courses, was arrested from Durgapur, in Burdwan district.

"The racket is spread far and wide. We are tracking down those who are involved. So far, the Kolkata Police Detective Department has arrested four people," deputy commissioner of the department Ajoy Kumar said.

"The case is still in the investigation stage and thus we don't want to reveal any information," he added.

The detective department started the probe on June 18 after receiving an anonymous letter about the goings-on.

Following the tip-off, the sleuths raided a house at 230/B A.J.C. Bose Road near Minto Park, central Kolkata, and learnt about an organisation called DAMS which had allegedly been running the medical entrance racket for the last two years.

Most of the dummy examinees are from Uttar Pradesh, usually second or third year medical students. The investigators said that several doctors and medical students were involved in the scam.

According to preliminary investigation, a dummy gets Rs.100,000-150,000 for writing the exam and the agent receives Rs.30,000-40,000 for persuading a candidate to enrol at the coaching institutes that make the arrangements.

Police said the arrested student Mihir Kumar Jha ran an institute called 'Meditrance', which was visited by senior teachers from outside West Bengal as well.

Supreme Court asks Kerala to provide security for examination

New Delhi, July 24 (IANS) The Supreme Court Tuesday asked the Kerala government to deploy an adequate number of police personnel at examination centres where private medical colleges will conduct an entrance test in August. Students unions affiliated to the ruling communists had disrupted the test earlier.

A bench of Justice B.N. Agarwal and Justice P.P. Naolekar gave the directions to the state government while disposing a plea by a consortium of private medical colleges of the state seeking deployment of central paramilitary forces for holding medical entrance tests Aug 5 for the 2007-08 academic session.

The court impressed upon the state government that it was its duty to provide adequate security during the conduct of the examination irrespective of whether it was conducted by private medical colleges or government run institutions.

The bench asked the government to have the tests conducted under the supervision of the state's statutory Admission Supervisory Committee.

The Kerala Private Medical Colleges Managements Association had approached the court Friday for a directive to the central government to provide paramilitary forces for security during its Common Entrance Test (CET) for admission to four private medical colleges in the state for 2007-08.

The Kerala medical colleges, in their petition, had said they were not able to conduct the entrance test on two earlier occasions due to "state-sponsored terrorism", as students affiliated to communist unions prevented the conduct of the test and the police remained mute spectators.

The petitioners said the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government through its student organisations, the Students Federation of India (SFI) and the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), had publicly protested against the medical colleges conducting the test.

The private medical colleges said that the student wing of the ruling left parties had created political unrest in the state. The students had announced that they would not allow the CET to be conducted.

The petitioners said they were forced to cancel the entrance test June 23 after the activists of the SFI and All India Students Federation (AISF) disrupted the conduct of the test.

The petitioners alleged that the police had left the venue of the test at 7.45 a.m. before the arrival of the student activists and it looked as if it was stage-managed by the government.

The Kerala government has, however, denied the allegations contending that the deployment of central paramilitary forces on such flimsy grounds would undermine the federal structure of the country and strain centre-state relations.

Court asks UGC to include Amity name in website

New Delhi, July 3 (IANS) Delhi High Court Tuesday directed the University Grants Commission (UGC) for listing Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, in the list of universities on its website.

Amity had submitted in the court that though it was recognised under the UGC Act with the power to award degrees, the non-inclusion of its name in the UGC List (which is a non-statutory list) was creating problems for its students as some universities were denying them admission for further education because the name of Amity was not on the UGC website.

Allowing the petition filed by Amity University, Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed observed: "It is beyond the pale of any debate that UGC is a public body and performs public functions and although it has discretion in maintaining or not maintaining a list of universities, once the discretion in exercised, it must be reasonable and not arbitrary.

"...it is not open to UGC to pick and choose and arbitrarily and unreasonably deny inclusion of the petitioner's name in the said list even though it falls within the definition of the word "university" given in section 2(f) of the UGC Act."

Revised UPCPMT 2007 Results Today

Lucknow, June 20 (IANS) Admitting serious anomalies in the results of the medical entrance examination, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to declare revised results Thursday.

The government will also announce the report submitted by a specially constituted nine-member technical committee that suggested reassessment of the result.

About 84,000 candidates had taken the Combined Pre-Medical Test (CPMT) to different medical colleges in the state, having nearly 1,600 seats. These also included the aryurvedic and homeopathic institutions.

Even as the investigating team was prima facie convinced that there was no "intentional irregularity" during the process, Chief Minister Mayawati was stated to have made it loud and clear that the guilty would not be spared at any cost.

"On the face of it, it seemed that an erroneous application of the systems had led to anomalies in the result and there was no mischief on the part of the concerned officials yet, the chief minister has given us very clear instructions to ensure that even those guilty of neglect be brought to book," state Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh told a press conference here Wednesday evening.

Besides widespread protests across the state, the discrepancies also led an unsuccessful candidate ending his life by jumping in front of a moving train.

The state administration was, however, not too sure what it would do in case the suicide victim now figured in the list of successful candidates.

"We could only express deep regret; after all, suicide is a cognizable offence and we must not encourage such tendencies," Singh pointed out.

Admitting that the revised result would seriously affect the position of a large number of candidates, he said: "The special probe panel had discovered that about 75 percent of the result was affected due to wrong application of computer software."

He, however, denied any irregularity in the checking of answer sheets. "A random re-scan of 14,000 answer sheets did not reveal any mischief."

According to him, the anomaly could have been nipped in the bud if the organisers of the examination had carried out a mandatory manual check.

(C) IANS & Vakilno1.com