The Supreme Court has rapped the Kerala government for promulgating an ordinance nullifying its last year's order freezing illegal admissions to two medical colleges in the state and stayed its operation.
The court's direction came on an appeal by the Medical Council of India against regularisation of these admissions made in self-financing Kannur and Karuna medical colleges in 2016-17.
A bench of justices Arun Mishra and U U Lalit yesterday stayed the Kerala Professional Colleges (Regularisation of Admission in Medical Colleges) Ordinance of 2017.
"In our prima facie view, the ordinance in question 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 the ordnance.
"We place on record that we had scanned the documents regarding admission in the first round of litigation and the case was heard at length for several days. Hard copies were also placed before us, whereafter we rendered the decision after considering that admissions were not given to the students in accordance with the law and approved the decision of the regulatory committee," the bench said.
The top court said that it was not open to "sit over the judgment" and validate those very admissions and to venture into regularising them.
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"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 or continue in the medical colleges in any manner pursuant to the ordinance. It is made clear to all concerned that any violation of the order shall be treated seriously by this court," it said.
On March 22 last year, the apex court had cancelled the admission of 180 medical undergraduate students in Kannur and Karuna medical colleges in Kerala due to irregularities in the admission procedure.