MUMBAI: In a relief to a doctor who graduated in 2015 from the sought after Seth G S Medical college, in Mumbai, Bombay high court on Tuesday said it was not setting aside his admission or medical degrees but directed him to deposit a penalty of almost Rs 11 lakh as imposed in 2019 after his caste certificate was found to be ‘forged’’.
The HC bench of Justices S V Gangapurwala and R N Laddha said it was not a proper case to take away the degree, since under the rules because of his admission a seat of a ST candidate cannot be said to be lost. The rules say when a person opts for admission from the reserved category and the marks obtained in the qualifying examination are sufficient to admit him from open category, then his admission will have to be considered from open category and not a reserve category and one seat in college where he was eligible for open seat shall be earmarked for a candidate belonging to the reserve category.
The HC also relied on a February 2022 Supreme Court ruling, cited by the petitioner’s counsel Madhav Thorat, which in a similar situation had confirmed a Tripura HC order that said withdrawing the basic MBBS degree would have “serious consequence’’ and would be “serious loss to the nation as well’’ since taxpayers' money is used to subsidize education in government colleges. A doctor duly trained in PG would not be allowed to practice too and it would benefit no one, least of the general interest of the country, the SC order had said.
Khan Mohammed, had in 2020 petitioned the HC to challenge a letter from KEM college directing him to deposit the penalty amount on grounds that he had submitted “forged validity certificate of Scheduled Tribe while securing admission to MBBS course’’ in 2010-11. The letter said that a proposal would be submitted to the Maharashtra University of Health Science, Nashik to cancel his MBBS degree.
The student after his MBBS did his post graduation in Ophthalmology as an open category pursuant to NEET-PG 2017 examination.
Thorat opposing the penalty said Khan was' 'a minor’’ when he took admission and it was a person who had visited his father then and “after verifying’’ his father’s documents opined that they belong to the ST category.
Government pleader Purnima Kantharia seeking dismissal of the petition said Khan could however have never got admission to Seth GS Medical college in Mumbai but may be some college out of Mumbai. She said he “knowingly’’ submitted a false validity certificate, hence his degrees deserve to be taken away. She added that an FIR has already been filed in the matter.
