The fate of over 550 medical students hangs in balance after the Supreme Court cancelled their admission in four self-financing colleges in Kerala on Monday. The order came on a plea by the Medical Council of India (MCI) that challenged an order of the Kerala High Court that had okayed the admissions.

The admissions were cancelled and affected students belonged to the ASl-Azhar College, DM Medical Colllege, PK Das Medical College and the SR Medical College. The MCI had contended that these colleges had filed to meet the necessary guidelines and the apex court upheld their plea.

Last month, the SC had quashed a Kerala government ordinance that was issued to ensure that 180 students who were admitted in violation of guidelines could pursue their studies at the Kannur Medical College and Karuna Medical College in the southern state’s Palakkad district. The LDF government led by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had earlier passed the Kerala Professional Colleges (regularization of admission in medical colleges) Bill 2018 to regularize the admissions to the self-financing medical colleges in 2016-17. The ordinance was promulgated by Governor and former Chief Justice of India, Justice P Sathasivam.

On March 22 last year, the SC had cancelled the admission of 180 students in these two colleges citing irregularities in the admission procedure. The Kerala government then promulgated the ordinance to regularize the admissions. The Kerala assembly had subsequently passed the ordinance as a bill in April this year.

In an earlier order, the SC had said that ordinance blatantly seeks to nullify the binding effect of the order passed by this court. “Prima facie it was not open to declare this court’s order as void or ineffective as was sought to be done by way of ordinance,” the Supreme Court had then said. “We therefore, stay the operation of the ordinance and make it clear that no student shall be permitted to reap any benefit of any action taken and they shall not be permitted to attend the college or the classes

                                                                                                         —India Legal Bureau