Patna Dental College and Hospital. Telegraph picture

Patna, Jan. 20: The state government’s admission policy for technical courses or the lack of it has cost a dentistry student dear eight months into the course.

The state health department recently cancelled Mohammad Iqbaal Shamsi’s admission at Patna Dental College and Hospital (PDCH), where he had been pursuing postgraduate dentistry.

Shamsi (28), who completed his bachelors in dental sciences from PDCH — Bihar’s only government dentistry college — took admission in the masters in dental sciences (prosthetics) through postgraduate medical admission test (PGMAT) last year.

“According to the prospectus, there were two seats for MDS in the college through state entrance examinations — one each for general and extremely backward castes (EBC) quota. I held the second position in the overall general category and first position in EBC category. Dental Council of India later ruled out that instead of two, only one student should be enrolled because of lack of faculty in the college. According to the government’s rotation roster policy — through which government had admitted one general quota student in 2009 — I was invited to join the course through the EBC category,” said Shamsi.

The student, who had stood first in the merit list through the general category policy, however, approached high court and the court ruled in his favour in October last year.

“In January this year, the government cancelled my admission and offered the seat to the other student,” added Shamsi.

He also said: “I was earlier told that the government was about to file letter patent appeal (LPA) against the court order. But for reasons best known to them they never filed the appeal which most probably would have turned the judgement in my favour.”

Shamsi does not know why the government backtracked on its own decision and why the LPA was not filed. “I do not know whether my dream of becoming a professor will come true or not, as holding an MDS degree is a must for that,” he said. He had chosen to take admission in PDCH though he had ranked 153 in the All India Post Graduate Examination for medical and dental courses. “I could have taken admission in any other college but I preferred PDCH as I belong to Patna. I thought it would suit me the best,” said Iqbaal.

The government did not even consider the Supreme Court ruling that said that there should be no admission in technical courses at the postgraduate level after May 31. For Shamsi, the only ray of hope now is the LPA he has filed at Patna High Court.

PDCH principal D.K. Singh said he was following the state government’s directive in cancelling Shamsi’s admission.