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High Court quashes RGUHS VC’s order

The High Court on Wednesday quashed the order of Vice-Chancellor, Rajiv Gandhi University of Heath Science (RGUHS) amending the norms of challenge valuation.

However, the Court said the ordinance brought out by the University regarding the same subject can be made applicable from March.

Hearing a petition by Sumeeth Kumar and others, students of Dr B R Ambedkar medical college, Justice Mohan Shanthanagowdar directed the University to recalculate the total marks of the students instead of the marks awarded by the two separate evaluators (median value).

The court observed that the vice-chancellor had no power to pass such an order and his order is not sustainable. So the notification dated September 11, 2008 regarding the challenge valuation to arrive at the median value by the Vice Chancellor was unconstitutional, the court observed.

Procedure incorrect

The Court said, “The Vice Chancellor’s objective was in the wider interest of the students, but the procedure is not correct and the action is not in accordance with the law.”

The Court said it will not interfere with the policy decision of the university as it is in the domain of University for making policy, modifying and repelling if needed.

“As the order is not sustainable in the eye of the law, the order dated 11 September, 2008 is quashed. The University is directed to recalculate the marks secured by the petitioners in challenging the valuation, while an ordinance passed by the University on April 3, 2009 can be made applicable from March onwards.”

The counsel appearing for the students had argued that the students were awarded less mark in revaluation of the marks.

“The university did not consider the differences of minimum and maximum marks obtained by the students, but it had considered the median marks in the revaluation of the answer scripts,” the petitioner argued.

The petitioners had challenged the notification issued by the Vice Chancellor stating this process of valuation has given them less marks.

PGET : The extended 2nd round of counseling for admission to PG Medical & Dental

The extended second round of counseling for admission to Postgraduate Medical & Dental courses in pursuant to the Orders of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in W.P.(C) No.216/2009 and also for the Government seats in Dr.B.R.Ambedkar Medical College, Bangalore, in pursuant to the Orders of the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka in W.P. No.12750/2008 for the academic year 2009-10 is scheduled to be held on the following dates at RGUHS, 4th ‘T’ Block, Jayanagar, Bangalore-560 041.

17.06.2009 Wednesday	Session I 9.30 AM to 1.30 PM Reporting Time 9.00 AM	Dental INSERVICE / entrance CANDIDATES
	Session II 1.30 AM to 5.00 PM Reporting Time 1.00 PM	Medical INSERVICE CANDIDATES
		entrance CANDIDATES Rank 1 TO 600
18.06.2009 Thursday	Session I 10.00 AM to 5.00 PM Reporting Time 9.30 AM	Medical entrance candidates 601 TO LAST RANK

All the eligible candidates can attend above counseling irrespective of whether they have selected the seat in the first, second and decatagorised rounds or not. Further, the candidates who could not attend first, second and decatagorised round of counseling can also attend the above rounds of counseling.

UPDATE:The Extended round of counseling is limited to the students who have secured admission in government medical colleges, government seat in private medical colleges and who have not opted any seat in any rounds of counseling through PGET - 2009 conducted by RGUHS. The candidates who have already selected the seats through other counseling agencies (ComedK, KRLM) and admitted to private medical colleges are not eligible to participate in this round of counseling.

Note:-

Candidates should submit their original documents compulsorily for selection of seats in the counseling. Without original documents candidates will not be allowed for counseling for selection of seat

The candidates should attend the Counseling in person for selection of seats, no representative will be allowed

Counseling closes after the allotment of last seat in the seat matrix

MINU director nominated to RGUHS Senate

The Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences here has reconstituted its senate and syndicate, including the appointment of Dr H Sudarshan Ballal, Director of Manipal Institute of Nephrology and Urology (MINU), for a 3 year tenure starting June 12.

Speaking to the Express, Dr Ballal expressed his gratitude to the government for the nomination and expressed his concern for medical education in the state.

Criticising the inadequate number of PG seats for MBBS graduates, Dr Ballal said, “There is a lack of opportunity after MBBS. Young doctors are frustrated as there are very few PG seats available.” Dr Ballal appreciated the RGUHS' efforts in starting PG courses in areas like Emerg e n c y Medicine and Nephrology and hopes even more career opport u n i t i e s are created for MBBS graduates.

He admitted that owing to the duration of medical courses, the number of students taking up medicine as a profession has reduced.

“We need to change mindsets.

We must motivate talented students to become doctors because we need efficient professionals,” Dr Ballal added.

He recently became one of the few Indians to have been awarded an honorary FRCP without having worked or trained at a UK hospital. A graduate of the Kasturba Medical College, Dr Ballal set up MINU at Bangalore, which is credited with the first kidney transplant in the state.

According to a notice on the RGUHS website, other health professionals selected as senate members by RGUHS include Dr Girish Galagiri (MDS, Gulbarga), Dr T Jayanti (KIMS Bangalore), Dr KC Raju Reddy (Bangalore), Dr HS Ramya (KIMS Bangalore).

The Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor have also appointed six members amongst persons having special interest in Health Sciences.

These include Dr Sriprakash KS (MOH, Bangalore), Dr B C Bhagwan (KIMS, Bangalore), Dr Mohan Alva (Alva’s Education Foundation, Moodbidri), Dr Gurushankar (BMCRI, Bangalore), Dr Kamini Rao, (BACC, Bangalore), Dr M Srinivas (MMCRI, Mysore).

Midway quitting the course: referred to division Bench

Is a college management entitled to seek the entire course fee if a student leaves the course midway?

Rules and regulations don't have specific answer to this situation. Related to this issue, a single Bench has referred the case of a student to a division Bench.

Smruthi, who had been studying in R V Dental College for six months, has been told to by the court to deposit the balance course fee by way of a bank guarantee. Also, the court told the college management to return her marks cards and other documents.

The college's counsel cited a Supreme Court observation related to a case with Islamia Academy, in which the college management is entitled to take the full course fee.

The petitioner's advocate, however, said there is no specific law or regulation to deal with such a situation and Smruthi can leave the course if she doesn't wish to continue.

According to the student, she discontinued 1st-year BDS course due to non-availability of educational loan. She asked the college to return her original marks cards and other documents so that she can pursue her course elsewhere.

She stood 4,390 rank in CET in 2008-09 and failed to get an MBBS seat, after which she was allotted a BDS seat under the government quota. She has paid a fee of Rs 32,500.

HC stays amended RGUHS norms on revaluation

The high court has stayed amended norms brought out by RGUHS for computing marks in challenge valuation cases.

Justice Mohanashantana Gouar stayed the September 10, 2008, norms on petition filed Sumit Kumar, a first-year student of Dr Ambedkar Medical College.

The petitioner, who failed in anatomy and other subjects, had sought for revaluation.

He challenged the amended norms of taking the average of median of both general and challenge valuation marks, instead of average highest and lowest of general and challenge valuation marks, which was the practice earlier. He said he would have got passing marks had the earlier norms were applied.

In the old method, general valuation was done by four valuators. The highest and lowest marks in both general and challenged valuations were taken together and average marks were awarded.

But as per the amendment, instead of taking highest and lowest marks, median marks were taken into consideration.

Changes soon in RGUHS examination process: VC

Vice-Chancellor of the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) S. Ramananda Shetty has said that RGUHS will now send question papers to colleges by email just minutes before examinations begin and tabulation of results will be done on computers and sent back to the university by email. The university had now introduced this system in postgraduate courses and it was a successful move. “We will soon introduce the system in undergraduate courses and manual entry of marks will stop,” he added.

Dr. Shetty claimed that RGUHS was the only university in the country which had formed a “professional misconduct committee” to monitor erring valuators.

Speaking to The Hindu here on Tuesday, he recalled that in a particular case, one evaluator had given a student 14 marks for an answer, while the question itself was for only 10 marks. The university this year had debarred 17 such evaluators who were not professional. “We also blacklist evaluators and try not to invite them for evaluation work as far as possible,” he added.

Dr. Shetty said the university had also introduced a facility whereby a student could contest his evaluation process, by paying a prescribed fee of Rs. 5,000 per paper. A copy of the answer script would be sent for re-evaluation and if the candidate were to get more marks, the fees paid would be refunded.

Dr. Shetty said that over 650 institutions including those teaching medicine, nursing and alternative therapies would soon come under the purview of university. Of them, 50 per cent were nursing colleges (323). For nursing colleges, recognition from the Indian Nursing Council (INC) and the Karnataka Nursing Council (KNC) was mandatory. “Some colleges do not have INC permission to conduct courses. Students from these colleges will not be eligible for employment in places where recognition is mandatory. The RGUHS has sent such a list to the State Government requesting it not to admit students to these colleges,” he added.

On the relocation of the university to Ramanagara, Dr. Shetty said, “The Government promised to give us 300 acres of land. Now 142 acres has been acquired but farmers have gone to court seeking a stay on the acquisition of the remaining land. Once the land is fully acquired, we will shift to the new campus.”

He said the Central Committee for Indian Medicine wrote to the university last year asking the authorities not to admit students to 28 Ayurveda colleges in the State as they did not have any infrastructure. By then, the admissions were already over. The university wrote to the CCIM stating that the admissions were already over and hence they may be permitted to continue. As many as 1,400 students were admitted to these colleges.

Dr. Shetty said there were 18,000 teaching staff working in colleges, teaching medicine and alternative forms of therapy, but the university needed another 5,000. The number of postgraduate seats would also be increased, he added.

He said there would be no problems as far as fresh admissions to Government Medical Colleges in Hassan, Shimoga, Mandya, Raichur, Bidar and Belgaum were concerned. The Medical Council of India would be meeting in Delhi on June 10 and would send renewal of recognition letters to the Karnataka Government. Seats in these colleges were available for the first round of counselling, he added.

Principal of SDM College of Ayurveda Prasanna N. Rao was present.