CBI case against senior MCI officials for admission graft

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday registered a case against senior officials of the Medical Council of India (MCI) and the principal of a private medical college in Kerala for alleged irregularity in the allotment of postgraduate seats.

On Wednesday morning, the CBI had carried out searches at the residential and official premises of MCI’s additional secretary Prasanna Raj; deputy secretary Anshu Sethi Bajaj; ex-consultant Madhu Handa; and Samson Nessaih, principal of Somervell Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. During the raid, the investigative agency recovered “incriminating documents”, it said in a statement.  

It was alleged that the old or pending applications of Somervell Medical College were processed in an unauthorised manner by the MCI. The CBI also said the Letter of Permission was issued after the due date. The bank guarantee along with the compliance letter to be submitted by the private college to MCI had also crossed the deadline.

An MCI ethics committee member said there will be internal investigation on the matter to ascertain if the alleged corruption was at the level of MCI or individuals.  He stressed some of the officers, who allegedly faced raids and searches at their residential and official premises, do not currently hold positions in the Council. “It is imperative to check at what level the corruption happened and what is the nature of it.”

Prasanna Raj is already under suspension from the Council. He was charged with several instances of alleged corruption and irregularities, the MCI official noted.

“The said college was not granted Letter of Permission for the preceding year because of the said reasons. The undue favours were allegedly shown to the said medical college on the part of the officials of MCI by ignoring the relevant regulations and necessary permissions were granted, which resulted in significant pecuniary benefits to the private medical college,” the CBI statement added.