The bench told Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam, who appeared for the government, that the materials supplied in respect of the investigation conducted in Chennai and the proposed investigation in Delhi were not sufficient to scrap the test held this year.
By IANS, [RxPG] The government Monday sought permission from the Supreme Court to scrap the All India Post Graduate Medical Entrance Test following allegations of students using unfair means, but the court said there was no material before it to allow this.
Rejecting the government's plea that a fresh examination be conducted by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, a bench of judges K.G. Balkrishnan and P.P. Naolekar, granted time till April 13 to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct a thorough probe into allegations of unfair means adopted by students in all centres where the examination was held.
The bench told Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam, who appeared for the government, that the materials supplied in respect of the investigation conducted in Chennai and the proposed investigation in Delhi were not sufficient to scrap the test held this year.
It asked Subramaniam to file a status report on the investigation by April 13 so that it could consider the application for holding a fresh entrance test.
The court was hearing a petition filed by 12 successful candidates who appeared in the test. They sought a direction to the government not to cancel the results.
Subramanian said the government wanted to cancel the examination in the larger public interest and to maintain the sanctity of one of the most prestigious examinations in view of a CBI report that 22 students at centres in Chennai had used ingenious methods for copying the question paper and answers were sent to students via SMS messages.
Appearing for the students, senior counsel Arun Jaitley said that merely because 22 of the 36,945 students had used unfair means, the examinations should not be cancelled.
Out of 4,188 students who passed the test, only 11.34 per cent had appeared in the centres at Chennai and of them, 10.25 per cent or 421 students had passed the test.
Jaitly asked: "Why should successful students be made to suffer for the unfair means adopted by 22 students? Let them investigate the matter in respect of other centres and if they find something extraordinary then the court can consider the question of scrapping the entire test.
"If it is a localised problem, it can be dealt with by taking appropriate action against the 22 students."
Successful candidates of Medical Dental Surgery (MDS) requested the court to let them get admission to institutes, as there was no allegation of malpractices in their examination that was held at centres different from those of postgraduate medical test.
