A student takes admission at IGIMS in Patna on Monday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, Aug. 29: In a hurry to complete the admission process within the August 31 deadline and start the MBBS course, the authorities of Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) started admitting students from Sunday.

Thirty students have taken admission to the MBBS course in the past two days. Of them, 20 students were admitted through second round of counselling of Bihar Combined Entrance Competitive Examination (BCECE). The 10 others were admitted against the quota earmarked for the students clearing the CBSE-All India Pre-Medical Test (AIPMT).

The college started verifying the documents of the students from Saturday, a day after a division bench vacated stay on the admission to the MBBS course at IGIMS. The classes would begin from September 9.

IGIMS director Dr Arun Kumar said the state entrance board has sent names of 58 students for admission to the MBBS course. “We have to take admission of 85 students through BCECE quota while the rest of the seats are meant for CBSE-AIPMT students. So far we have received names of 14 students form CBSE and 10 of them took admission today,” said Kumar.

The director said the admission process would be finished by August 31. “But if some stray vacancies remain beyond that day, we will fill them up in September according to MCI (Medical Council of India) guidelines. Also, if all the seats under the CBSE quota are not be filled up, we will take students from BCECE merit list as CBSE rule allows us to do so,” he said.

According to Kumar, efforts were on to fill up four vacancies in the faculty within a month. “There are few vacancies in basic sciences like anatomy and physiology. We will advertise for the remaining posts now and finish the recruitment process as soon as possible,” Kumar said.

The MCI gave permission to IGIMS to start the MBBS course from the current academic session with 100 seats.

A single bench of Patna High Court had 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 last Friday. 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 on the admission process.

Abhinav, who could not clear the state entrance exam, had applied for appearing in the all-India written examination for which the institu- tion had initially invited applications.

Sources said the IGIMS decided on August 3 that admissions to the MBBS course at the institute would be made through counselling of the students figuring in the state entrance merit list.