Ranchi, Aug. 22: The Jharkhand High Court today scrapped Tata Steel’s quota of four seats at Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Hospital (MGMCH) till further orders.

Hearing a writ petition accusing irregularities in admission through the Tata Steel quota, the court also directed the government to increase the number of beds in MGMCH from the existing 454 to a minimum 500 within a month.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice V.K.Gupta and Justice Hari Shankar Prasad passed the directives while hearing a writ petition filed by the Jharkhand Lok Chetna Abhiyan.

Former Bihar chief minister Laloo Yadav’s daughters were admitted to the medical college through the Tata Steel quota.

The court observed that “only because the government is not using the full bed strength, four seats of MBBS are being allocated to a private institution, the poor meritorious students are being denied the benefit of education and at the same time a full-fledged hospital of the government is not allowed to function properly.”

The court also directed medical education and research secretary, MGMCH principal, its superintendent and East Singhbhum deputy commissioner to ensure that the functional bed strength of the hospital was taken to a minimum of 500 within four weeks from today.

The officials were also entrusted with the responsibility to remove all illegal occupants from the hospital premises within a week.

It specifically directed the deputy commissioner Nidhi Khare to ensure compliance of the order.

The bench directed the East Singhbhum senior superintendent of police to render every assistance to the deputy commissioner in ensuring the eviction of all unauthorised occupants from the college and hospital.

In pursuance of the court’s order dated August 8, which had served a show cause notice, the medical education department today submitted its affidavit.

According to the affidavit, MGMCH has a sanctioned bed strength of 539 but due to reasons like unauthorised occupation and lack of proper space, the actual functioning bed strength was only 454.

According to the regulations of Medical Council of India, the minimum bed strength of a hospital should be 500 for continuation of the MCI affiliation.

The quota of four seats had been given to Tata Steel because it had provided infrastructural and other assistance when the medical college was being set up.

“Initially, MGM students were allowed to use the laboratory facilities at Tata Main Hospital. Tata Steel doctors also used to assist in the teaching work at the medical college. The quota was provided basically for admitting the wards of employees and ex-employees of the Tatas,” sources said.

”Later, some seats fell into misuse under bureaucratic and political pressure and two daughters of Laloo Yadav, a ward of former Bihar minister Ilias Hussain and children of some senior officials were admitted against the quota,” the sources added.