KATHMANDU, Oct 5: Fate of 1,736 medical students remains uncertain after Supreme Court ordered the Institute of Medicine not to admit those students selected through the recent entrance exam. The apex court has questioned the fairness of entrance exams conducted to pick smart minds.

The IoM had conducted the entrance exams of MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery), Bachelor in Dental Surgery, Bachelor in Public Health, Bachelor in Pharmacy, Bachelor of Science in Medical Lab Technology Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Bachelor in Nursing courses in the third week of September. About 15,000 students appeared in the entrance tests taken by the IOM.

A total of 1,736 medical students were in process of enrolling this year in different streams including MBBS, according to the IOM. The new academic session was scheduled to begin from November 17. A single bench of apex court Justice Deepak Raj Joshee on Tuesday had issued an interim order asking the IoM not to proceed the admission of students until October 7 when the apex court has summoned both for discussion.

Reshma Baniya, who appeared in the MBBS entrance exam but failed to pass through it had filed a writ at the court complaining that irregularities in the exam deprived her from the MBBS study. The students securing at least 50 percent marks in the common entrance exams will be eligible for getting admission in the IOM colleges across the country. According to the IOM, 4,500 students obtained the eligible marks to get admission in total seats of 585 MBBS in all medical colleges under Tribhuvan University. IOM earlier planned to begin admission process and counseling students from October 20."Every process will be affected after the court order," said Prof Dr JP Agrawal, Dean at IOM. "We have to wait for the court decision to begin the admission process," he said.

According to the IOM sources, student moved the court by dissatisfying with the marks obtained in the entrance test. "We have fairly checked the answer sheets without any biasness," said Prof Agrawal. The court order has hampered the admission process of all the perspective students. It would not be better to halt the admission process of all students but the court can see the answer sheets of the plaintiff or recheck it, said the IOM officials. "The dissatisfied student might not have answered the test questions accurately," they said.

 
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