Three complaints of impersonation in medical entrance exam: CBI to HC
The CBI informed the Madras High Court on Thursday that it had received three complaints -- two from Tamil Nadu and one from Kerala -- related to impersonation in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for admission to medical colleges.
Making the submission before a bench comprising Justices N Kirubakaran and P Velmurugan, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) counsel K Srinivasan said the complaints had been received at the agency's Chennai zonal office.
Two complaints of impersonation from Chennai had been referred to the Medical Council of India, while the one from Kochi in Kerala was under the scrutiny of the CBI, he added.
The submission was made in line with the undertaking given by the CBI counsel in the previous hearing that he would verify whether the agency had received any complaint of impersonation or malpractice in NEET in other states.
The court, originally hearing a petition related to unfilled NRI quota seats in private medical colleges, has widened the scope on its own taking note of the NEET scam.
The impersonation scam surfaced in September after a first-year MBBS student of a government medical college in Theni was found to have allegedly used a proxy to write the entrance exam for him.
Following investigation by the state Crime-Branch CID police, the student, his father Venkatesan, a government doctor, and Kerala-based agent Rasheed had been arrested.
Later, the police said several other students from Tamil Nadu too had resorted to foul means to get MBBS admissions and made some more arrests.
On October 16, the court had impleaded the CBI as a respondent noting that since the students impersonated and got admission by writing the examination outside the state, the fraud should be an all-India phenomenon and many students in various states could have got admission by impersonation.
It had also directed that fingerprints of all students admitted to medical colleges in the state be collected and compared with the ones obtained during NEET.
During the hearing on Thursday, the state government submitted that 16 students were yet to give their thumb impressions to the CB-CID and that the process would be completed by Friday.
Petitioner S Dheeran, a medical aspirant from Coimbatore, sought a direction to frame a procedure for filling up the 207 lapsed NRI quota seats, and submitted he had obtained 303 marks in NEET and that all but seven students who got admission under the quota had scored less than him.
One of the candidates admitted under NRI lapsed quota got only 107 marks, his counsel claimed, adding there was no transparency in the admission process.
The private medical colleges have not followed the guidelines as laid down by the Supreme Court, he contended. The counsel for MCI sought time to get instructions on the issue following which the court posted the matter to November 21.
