3 Dental Council members get Kerala HC notice
The Kerala High Court has issued notices to seven members of the Dental Council of India, three of them from Karnataka, for allegedly amassing money illegally to the tune of Rs 50 crore.
The accused, Dr Y Bharath Shetty, Dr Jayakar S M and Dr Pradeep Chandra Shetty, are associated with Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS). Bharath Shetty is said to represent the State Dental Council, Jayakar is a State government nominee, while Pradeep Chandra Shetty is a part of the RGUHS Syndicate.
A Division Bench headed by Justice Manjula Chellur ordered issuance of notices on October 4 in response to a PIL which seeks an investigation by the Cental Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged bribe.
The PIL has been filed by a former member of the Dental Council of India, Dr Shaji Joseph. The petition alleged that the seven, including DCI president Dr Dibyendu Mazumder and vice-president Dr Mahesh Verma, amassed Rs 50 crore as gratification for granting permission to 1,187 new post graduate seats for the academic year 2012-13, by abusing their official positions. The petitioner also contends that the seats were granted to private institutions without full-time faculties or infrastructural facilities.
The petition also challenged the validity of the amendment regulations made to the Dental Council of India rules in 2011, wherein a 4 plus 1 system was introduced in place of five-year integrated system introduced in 2007.
The petitioner has alleged that the amendment has brought about chaos amongst dental students and that the private managements were not paying the students a year of internship fee, but were collecting the fee for the fifth year from the students. The petitioner claimed that all this was being done in connivance with the Dental Council of India.
