Centre rejects plea for reduction of cut-off marks for MBBS students 

Agartala, Aug 25: The Union Ministry of Health rejected the plea for reduction of cut-off marks for Schedule Caste (SC) and Schedule Tribe (ST) categories for admission to MBBS course at Agartala Government Medical College (AGMC), said Tripura Chief Secretary S K Panda here today. 

He said both Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and Health Minister Tapan Chakraborty had written separate letters to Union Health Minister Gulam Nabi Azad and the Medical Council of India (MCI) requesting to reduce the cut-off marks from prescribed 40 per cent in state joint entrance examination for SC and ST students.

''Replying to the Chief Minister's letter, Mr Azad on August 8 had clearly stated that the issue involved two aspects-- teaching and treatment and the professionals are to deal with living human beings, so, diluting qualifying criteria is neither feasible nor desirable,'' Dr Panda underlined. 

He said as many as 29 seats in reserved categories, including 25 seats for ST, had been left vacant in the AGMC this year because of non-availability of qualified students and two separate writ petitions had been filed in the Guahati High Court's Agartala bench demanding filling up of reserved medical seats by reducing the cut-off marks. 

The bench had rejected the plea for reduction of cut-off marks prescribed by the MCI for reserved categories for getting admission in MBBS early this month. 

The agitators pointed out that the TJE Board did not announce the cut-off marks before the exam as per MCI guidelines that led to chaos and left 23 seats vacant due to non-availability of students. 

The government had sought advice from the MCI and the Health Ministry to manage the situation while making it clear that the state government would not fill-up the seats from unreserved category unless they received comprehensive instruction. 

''In cut-off marks issue, the Tripura government and the MCI do not have any scope to review the guideline as it has been decided by the Supreme Court,'' said Assistant Solicitor General P Biswas in the HC and added there was no scope of review by the MCI and the Ministry of Health except the Supreme Court. 

Referring to an instance, he also pointed out that the Gujarat government had earlier admitted seven students to MBBS course violating the prescribed norms of scoring and ultimately the MCI had turned down the admission describing them as ''illegal''.

The Joint Action Committee, an organisation of tribal units of Tripura demanded assurance of filling up the vacancies in MBBS course. They had also met the MCI Chairman, the Union Health Ministry officials and the Tripura Health Minister.

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