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The Delhi High Court has stated that thousands of students in the country work hard and toil to achieve merit-based admissions to educational institutions, including medical colleges, and that it is past time for backdoor entry to be prohibited. The high court made the remark while dismissing an appeal by five students who were admitted to LN Medical College Hospital and Research Centre in Bhopal in 2016 without going through the Department of Medical Education's centralised counselling process (DME).

However, the Supreme Court has ordered that admissions to all government and private medical colleges in the country be done through a centralised counselling mechanism based on the NEET exam results. As a result, in April 2017, the Medical Council of India (MCI) issued letters of dismissal to the five petitioners, and several more communications were received after that, but neither the students nor the medical institution paid attention to them.

The college continued to recognise the petitioners as students, allowing them to enrol in classes, take exams, and advance in their careers. The five petitioners eventually filed a case, which was dismissed by the sole court, requesting quashing of the MCI's discharge messages and a directive that they be allowed to continue their studies so at medical college as ordinary medical students. They filed an appeal against the sole judge's decision. The appeal was also denied by a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh, who said it lacked merit.

“It is high time that such backdoor entries in educational institutions, including medical colleges, should stop. Lakhs of students all over the country work hard and toil to secure admissions to educational institutions on the basis of their merit,” the bench claimed in its order on Sept 9.

“To permit any backdoor entry to any educational institution would be grossly unfair to those who are denied admission, despite being more meritorious, on account of the seats being taken and blocked by such backdoor entrants,” it also said.

“Had they acted in terms of the discharge letter of April 26, 2017, they would have saved four years of their lives. But they did not and acted recklessly. Despite not having any interim orders in their favour in their writ petition, they continued to attend the course, obviously, at their own peril,” the court added.

Despite the MCI's discharge of the petitioners, Advocate T Singhdev, representing the MCI, stated that the matter was not addressed by the college or the students as early as April 26, 2017, and that they continued to disregard it despite repeated communications. He further stated that the petitioners did not get an interim injunction from the court, and that despite this, they continued to accept admissions and take exams at the college, which they did at their own risk, and that they cannot claim equity in their favour.

The petitioners, according to Singhdev, did not go through centralised counselling and were fully aware from the start that their admissions to the college were irregular and unconstitutional, despite the Supreme Court's ruling. The petitioners' counsel argued that they scored higher on the NEET exam than even those who were admitted to this medical college through the DME's central counselling process, and that they should therefore be granted leniency.

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