CALCUTTA, 19 December 2004 — West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya yesterday admitted that the state government has a “moral responsibility” to help 74 non-resident Indian (NRI) MBBS students expelled from two state-run medical colleges.
It’s the first time Buddhadev has accepted moral responsibility for the capitation fee scandal destroying the lives of so many aspiring doctors.
Meanwhile, evicted NRI medical students who are on a hunger strike for the third successive day, announced plans to file a mercy petition in the Supreme Court tomorrow.
The dismissed MBBS students, including girls, also called on West Bengal Human Rights Commission Chairman Shyamal Sen yesterday to complain that they were being penalized for no fault of theirs. Sen advised them to approach the Supreme Court as they had been axed on the specific orders of a division bench of the apex court.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered West Bengal government to throw out 74 NRI MBBS students from Calcutta’s S.S.K.M. Medical College and Hospital and the Midnapore Medical College and Hospital and file a compliance report on Dec. 20.
The evicted students had officially paid the state government Rs.1 million each last year under the Left Front government’s doomed cash-for-medical seats scheme. But the capitation fee scheme, under which 50 percent of seats in the two medical colleges were reserved for NRIs, was challenged in court by students who had cleared the tough Joint Entrance Examination, or JEE.
Buddhadev said yesterday that he shared the agony of the expelled NRIs and their parents.
“We tried our best. We employed the best lawyers money could buy. I personally consulted barrister Siddhartha Shankar Ray. But the Supreme Court remained unconvinced”, he said apologetically.
