HC orders five-week probe into NEET fraud in BAMS admissions

Indian Express

5 days ago

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday directed Guru Ravi Dass Ayurved University to complete within five weeks its inquiry into allegations that 15 students of Shiv Shakti Ayurvedic Medical College and Hospital, Moga, were admitted to the Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) course on the basis of manipulated NEET details. The division bench of Chief Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice Sanjiv Berry, while disposing of the students' petition, kept their results in abeyance and made their continuation in classes and internships strictly provisional.
The 15 petitioners, admitted across the 2020 21 and 2021 22 academic sessions, had approached the court against show-cause notices issued by the university threatening cancellation of their admissions. The notices alleged that during the admission process, the petitioners' NEET ranking details were 'incorrectly furnished and deliberately suppressed,' giving an impression that they had qualified the national entrance test. The students had been given five days to explain why their admissions should not be cancelled.
During hearings, the university informed the bench that the admissions were facilitated by two admission agents, Tarsem Kumar and Raj Kumar, who had filled the candidates' forms using doctored NEET data. A complaint from Rajbir Singh, a Patiala resident, had led the Vice-Chancellor of Guru Ravi Dass Ayurved University to order a probe. The inquiry was entrusted to Justice Rajiv Narain Raina, a retired judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, who is presently seized of the matter.
On June 16, 2025, the court had allowed the students to appear in their ongoing examinations provisionally. In Tuesday's order, the bench underscored that it would not examine the merits of the allegations to avoid prejudicing the inquiry but found it appropriate to issue directions to balance the interests of the petitioners and the integrity of the ongoing probe.
'The enquiry shall be completed within five weeks; results of the examinations taken under interim orders shall not be declared but will remain subject to the probe's outcome; all petitioners except the two final-year students may attend next semester classes provisionally, and the two final-year students who completed their last-semester exams may start their one-year internship from July 30, also provisionally, all directions being subject to the enquiry's outcome,' the court said in its order .
The petitioners' counsel had urged that without declaration of results and permission to progress academically, their careers would be jeopardized, especially for the two senior-most students who had completed their final semester and were required to commence a one-year internship starting July 30. The bench acceded to a limited relief, clarifying that no equity could be claimed by the petitioners if the inquiry ultimately confirmed irregularities.
The ruling comes amid heightened scrutiny of irregular admissions in professional courses, particularly where admission agents have been accused of gaming centralised counselling by supplying false NEET data.