Medical admissions & court order

  THE article “BDS aspirants a harassed lot” (Sept 7) has beautifully highlighted the irregularities committed by the selection board and the college authorities in Punjab. They have played havoc with the career of merit-holders, leaving them in a state of high frustration. To elaborate the point, here are irregularities of grave nature that have been observed in the allotment of BDS seats by the authorities concerned.

Transparency was totally missing at the time of counselling. Students were kept in the dark regarding the fee structure in the various government/private colleges in the state till late in the evening at the time of the first counselling on August 24, 1998. Though later an announcement was made that the annual fee would be Rs 8,000 and Rs 75,000 for free and payment seats, respectively, in the private colleges at Amritsar and Faridkot, when the selected candidates with their parents approached these colleges, the ground slipped from under their feet. The authorities demanded Rs 1.93 lakh for admitting a student in the Ist year of the BDS course. While Rs 1 lakh was as the security deposit, (refundable after the completion of the course without any interest), the tuition fee of Rs 8000 was loaded with various other charges/funds to bring it to Rs 93,000, payable every year.

In any counselling, a student reserves the right to be put on the waiting list for a better college, but the well-established norms were ignored even in the case of the student who was offered the first seat at SGRD College, Amritsar. A vacant seat in Government College at the time of the second counselling was not given to him because he had not paid the requisite fee/security amount which, on slipping into Government College, would have otherwise been forfeited. Does this not amount to indulging in an unfair practice to squeeze the students/parents to benefit the college authorities ?

Again, if a student who got selected for admission to the Faridkot college intended to keep his option open for SGRD Dental College, Amritsar, he could do so only after having first deposited the fee/security money with the college at Faridkot and, everything except the security deposit is bound to be forfeited if he gets a seat in Amritsar at the next counselling.

These irregularities are continuing notwithstanding the fact that the Supreme Court has understandably put a cap of Rs 16,000 for the tuition fee per annum for free seats in any private dental college. However, the greedy people at the helm of affairs have flouted the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling by burdening the students/parents with various other charges unbearable by the common man.

It is, therefore, felt that it would have been in the fitness of things if the apex court had given a comprehensive order fixing the limit for various charges/funds. The situation warrants that all the counselling conducted so far be cancelled and a fresh process initiated with full transparency, following the fee structure as per the spirit of the apex court ruling.

K. K. SONI

Panchkula

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Scope of PIL

I have read with curiosity the article on public interest litigation (PIL) by Mr Anupam Gupta published recently. It is correct to say that “a person aggrieved by any order pertaining to any matter within the jurisdiction of a tribunal may make an application to the tribunal for the redressal of his grievance”.

The expression “aggrieved person” is elastic in nature. It depends on the circumstances, nature and extent of the petitioner’s interest and prejudice or the injury suffered by him. Even in the high courts justice is very slow.

Justice Kuldip Singh warned the people against attempts by politicians and bureaucrats to put curbs on PIL. He described PIL as a “potent weapon” in the hands of the judiciary.

PIL has played a pivotal role in furthering the cause of democracy. It has come to the rescue of the poor who, because of the lack of awareness, assertiveness and resources, are unable to seek judicial redress.

PIL has been the rule of law helpful in establishing and advancing the cause of justice. It has improved the quality of life of the people. It is a strategic arm of legal aid.

PRAMILA GUPTA

Samalkha (Panipat)

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A slur on womanhood

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s report on the Clinton-Lewinsky affair gives lurid details of the activities of a 21-year-old (now 24) sex-starved, power-hungry and ambitious woman. One of the questions that arise is what she was doing with a man of her father’s age.

If she says she “loved” Mr Bill Clinton, it is a blatant lie. She is a slur on womanhood . It is she who went to the US President. It is she who was “frustrated” by “lack of contact”. It is she who got “insecure” after not hearing from him.

I am not trying to justify Mr Clinton’s acts if all this is true. My point is that the behaviour pattern of Ms Lewinsky shows that she had a frustrating, uncared, unloved childhood. She grew in a society where mothers have little time for their children; where “morality” is an outdated concept; where sex stares you in the eye wherever you are; where fear of HIS retribution does not exist in the mind of the people; where “love” probably is sex!

Did she ever fear that she was committing the biggest sin with a married man? No. She also had an affair with another person and the relationship continued. Even while she was in the White House. Had this girl been of an Asian parentage, I am sure her own parents would have shot her dead.

KANIKA MANKOTIA

Mohan Gram (Patiala)

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Universities & their accounts

I am a student of Masters in Commerce with specialisation in advanced accounts. I have been taught that the organisations whose motive is not to make profit should make their annual accounts consisting of a receipt and payment account, an income and expenditure account, and a balance-sheet at the end of the financial year.

As part of my study, I was required to analyse a few such accounts, and I decided to study the annual accounts of the universities of Punjab. My selection of these institutions was also on the basis of my belief that the availability of their accounts should be easier.

However, I got the shock of my life. Universities do not prepare the accounts in the manner we are taught. They do not practice what they teach. As I entered into an argument with one of the responsible officers of the university, he took the plea that they prepared their accounts not as what was taught, but what was provided in their Act.

I believe that the relevant law should be suitably amended so that seats of learning should also have excellence in managing their affairs.

T. KAUR

Mohali

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Nabbing a killer

A news-item published in The Tribune on September 12 lists certain steps being taken by the district administration of Jhajjar to nab the sex maniac who has kidnapped and killed 11 girls during the past about three years in Bahadurgarh. One of these steps is the issuance of identity cards to all rickshaw-pullers by the municipal committee of that town and a directive to all industrialists to issue such cards to their workers.

The step is quite intriguing. What if the sex maniac is already a rickshaw-puller or an industrial worker? What purpose will be served by the issuance of an identity card to him? Will it not rather become a licence for him to move around freely?

SURENDRA MIGLANI

Kaithal

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Ways of railways

I do not know why, but I feel strangely moved by reassurances. Not major reassurances, such as those given by the Minister of Railways that all trains will now run on time, or — just because that minister has himself photographed wielding a broom on a platform one day — that everything will turn spick and tidy soon. I am moved by small reassurances.

Take the case of the railways again. Each time I see the “cleanliness kiosk” at the Chandigarh station, with a heavy padlocked showcase in which toilet paper rolls are arranged in a neat row, and one can see through the grime of the glass a broom, with the plastic cover on it still intact, I feel good. For the bold message painted on this eternally unmanned kiosk says that “We (the railways) are always ready for your sewa”. I find this as heart-warming as the regular announcement in that laboured English accent on the Shatabdi that “in case of assistance” (sic), we can contact the staff on duty. It is a wholly different matter that appropriate staff members are not to be found anywhere: the promise is good enough for me. It is like the promise of good intentions contained in those forever empty, rusting metal deodorant containers that hang rakishly in the smelly toilets of India’s most prestigious train.

I am a little disoriented, however — this I must confess — when vague or inaccurate information is sought to be passed on to me. Like about the distance between Chandigarh and Delhi, which the same laboured accent tells that tourists each time, is “270 kilometres”. That it is not: the fare is charged for this distance, but the actual distance is decidedly shorter. Or, again, when I heard the other day — twice — an announcement at the Chandigarh station when the Shatabdi for Delhi was due to arrive from Kalka. The announcement in English spoke of its arrival on “platform no. I”, whereas that in Hindi, which followed on its heels, said it would arrive on “platform no. 2”. I suppose this was the railways’ way of sifting the English-speaking rabble from the Hindi-speaking one.

When speaking of folk art, one sometimes uses the expression “the poetry of imprecision”. I did not know all these years that this was also the domain of our railways. Now I do.

B. N. GOSWAMY

Chandigarh