MDS Admissions Without NEET Cannot Be Regularised, College Must Compensate Students: Rajasthan High Court

The petitioners were admitted to the MDS course at Daswani Dental College, Kota, in May 2017 at college level after the counselling mop-up round, without registering with the State NEET PG counselling board (paras 19, 41, 71). In 2018 the Dental Council of India decided to discharge the 16 students; the College neither discharged them nor challenged the decision (paras 33, 71). Refused enrolment for the 2020 final examination, they obtained an interim order to sit it without disclosing the discharge orders (paras 7, 12, 71, 97). A second petition challenged the discharge and sought a declaration that the admissions were valid (para 3). The University alleged that several students had stated false NEET scores (paras 50-51, 54).

For the 2017 session NEET-MDS, conducted by the National Board of Examinations, was the single-window entrance test, and the information booklet required the 50th-percentile qualifying score under the 2007 DCI Regulations (paras 73-74, 82). The Board's decision of 29.05.2017 did not let any college admit students on its own after the mop-up round (paras 79, 94). As the petitioners were neither registered nor NEET-qualified, the plea that NEET became compulsory only in September 2017 failed; the DCI could insist on NEET under the 2007 Regulations and rightly decided to discharge them (paras 81-85, 88-89). Having obtained admission by wrong means and given false NEET information, they could not claim a hearing (paras 90-91, 95). Rajan Purohit was distinguished because it separates ineligible candidates from eligible ones admitted irregularly; Priya Gupta and the other cases cited for the students turned on their facts, on Article 142 or were declared not to be precedents (paras 105-114). Following Abdul Ahad and Gurdeep Singh, per se illegal admissions cannot have the courts' seal of approval (paras 115-116, 119). The University's issue of degrees despite the Division Bench's restraint order was ‘irresponsible, callous and illegal’ (paras 128, 130).