All clear: Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences

Patna, Aug. 26: The high court today cleared the decks for admission to the newly introduced MBBS course at Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS), giving respite to hundreds of medical aspirants.

Setting aside the single bench order staying admissions to the health cradle, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Rekha M. Doshit and Justice Birendra Prasad Verma gave green signal to the institute to admit students following the merit list prepared on the basis of the Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination (BCECE).

Bolstered by the high court order, the IGIMS authorities announced to start admissions from Monday. Dr Arun Kumar, the director of IGIMS, told The Telegraph: “It is a happy moment for the institution and the state as decks have been cleared for Bihar’s long dream of having a medical college at the IGIMS. We have all the arrangements in place to begin the admission process now.”

He said an admission committee had been constituted and the admissions would begin from Monday.

“We have to fill up 85 seats through BCECE counselling. We have received the names of 15 students to be admitted in the CBSE-All India Pre-Medical Test quota. We will comfortably finish the admission process by August 31, as directed by a Supreme Court judgement,” Kumar added.

In a bid to complete the admission process to the IGIMS by August 31, the state government and the IGIMS today moved the division bench after the single judge bench refused to vacate its stay yesterday.

The single bench imposed a stay on the entire admission process of the IGIMS on August 19 while hearing a petition filed by Kumar Kshitiz Abhinav. He sought a stay on the admission to the MBBS course in IGIMS on the basis of the state combined entrance examination.

But the division bench set aside Abinav’s plea today. It observed that the petitioner (Abhinav) and others had no vested rights and the IGIMS was well within its rights to review its earlier decision for taking admissions.

Abhinav, who could not clear the state entrance exam, had applied for appearing in the all-India written examination for which the institution had initially invited applications. Sources said the board of governors of IGIMS decided in a meeting on August 3 that admissions to the newly introduced MBBS course at the institute would be made through second round of counselling of students figuring in the state entrance merit list. The institution had cited time crunch for scrapping the all-India entrance test.

The Medical Council of India (MCI) gave permission to the IGIMS to start MBBS course from the current academic session on June 30. With 100 seats, it would be the maiden autonomous health cradle in the state.

The MCI stated that the “permission to continue with the MBBS course at the IGIMS would be renewed annually on verification of achievement of annual target set in the project report submitted by the institution”. It also said the process of annual renewal of permission would continue till the establishment of the medical college and expansion of hospital facilities were completed according to the norms of the MCI.