Hyderabad: The enforcement directorate (ED) exposed a scam involving private medical colleges and middlemen manipulating postgraduate (PG) medical admissions under the Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS) after going through money trail. Documents accessed by TOI detail a range of fraudulent practices employed to block seats in premium medical streams and reallocate them at inflated fees. The ED attached properties linked to the accused and continues its investigation into the financial irregularities.
An analysis of the students’ data submitted by KNRUHS shows various methods were employed by seat blockers in collusion with private medical colleges in premium or sought-after streams, such as radio-diagnosis, general medicine, obstetrics, dermatology, paediatrics, and orthopaedics, among others.
ED’s investigation began after KNRUHS lodged a complaint in April 2022, alleging irregularities in admission process. Raids conducted in June 2023 targeted 12 colleges, including Chalmeda Ananda Rao Institute, Prathima Institute, and Kamineni Institute. The findings revealed systematic seat blocking and financial misconduct.
Suspicious candidates identified
The suspicious candidates were identified based on certain categories
A. Cases where penalty paid to KNRUHS is suspicious
i. KNRUHS provided data of students who discontinued upon paying a penalty to the university (penalty amount being enhanced from time to time to discourage seat blocking). Upon scrutiny of payment details, requisite details were sought from various banks. Analysis of this data revealed payments for most of demand drafts were made by persons/entities not linked to students.
ii. In some cases, although payments were made from bank accounts of candidates, reverse trailing of source of funds revealed amount equivalent to penalty was either deposited in cash or received from other persons/entities, suspected to be related to private medical colleges. KNRUHS identified 36 such discontinued candidates.
iii. KNRUHS also provided details of candidates who were issued show-cause notices on suspicion of seat blocking. Through an analysis of data filled by candidates at the time of registration for counselling, the university found several candidates/brokers/consultancy firms applied for premium courses in colleges on behalf of students who were either already admitted to other colleges or were allotted seats somewhere across India, using fake/fabricated documents of such students.
B. Students to whom KNRUHS sent show-cause notices
i. Upon scrutiny of data provided by KNRUHS, it was revealed that some of these candidates, in response to show-cause notices, informed that they never applied for counselling in KNRUHS or were already pursuing PG courses in other courses.
ii. In many cases, candidates from other states who secured good ranks in the NEET PG exam applied for counselling. Analysis of payment details and the IP address details revealed that in several cases, the same IP addresses and payment modes were used at time of registration for various phases of counselling for convenor quota (CQ) and management quota (MQ) quota. Thirty-seven such candidates were analysed and segregated college-wise.
C. Complete details not provided by college admins
i. After scrutiny of data of mapping of counselling from phase-1 to mop-up round/last phase of CQ and MQ, a list of suspicious candidates was compiled, based on free-exit and sliding (to other colleges) by the candidates.
ii. Summons were issued to principals of 17 private medical colleges affiliated with KNRUHS seeking details of suspicious candidates mentioned.
iii. In several cases, response of colleges/principals was unsatisfactory and suspicious. In most cases, colleges claimed that since they returned all original documents to candidates upon request of withdrawal, they were unable to provide the same. Regarding refunds made to candidates, most college principals stated that the demand drafts collected from the candidates were not encashed and were returned to them in original, and in many cases, the colleges were unable to provide copies/details of the demand drafts. This cast doubts on credibility of submissions made by colleges/principals. In some colleges, it was observed that principals/deans were only namesake authorities and admission-related works were managed by key managerial persons of governing bodies/trusts/societies.
D. Registration details as per KNRUHS differ from NEET
In certain cases, contact details (phone number and email ID) used at the time of NEET registration did not match details used at the time of registration of KNRUHS. Said students did not join any college or took free exit at various phases
E. Candidates debarred by KNRUHS for attempted seat blocking or failure to pay penalty
KNRUHS debarred five candidates in 2022-2023 who tried to block seats or did not pay penalty
F. Candidates who took free exit in last phase of counselling
Many students took free exit in last phase of counselling, creating stray vacancies for colleges
Modus Operandi of Seat Blocking
Case 1: Middlemen targeting rural high-rankers
Middlemen target All India high-ranking students, especially non-local students from rural areas of other states with limited knowledge of counselling process. These students, often from poor backgrounds, are enticed with a promise to guide them to getting admissions at top medical colleges. The middlemen request these students’ KNRUHS registration credentials, along with self-attested copies of all documents for uploading on web-counselling portal for admission in management quota.
These students, with NEET PG ranks ranging from 2,000 to 10,000, often hand over their credentials, unaware that middlemen will misuse this information to gain unauthorised access to counselling portal. Middlemen also obtain OTPs sent to students’ registered mobile numbers and emails, allowing them to fill in preferences.
Middlemen maintain regular contact with college authorities and arrange for 3-4 students per academic year based on requirements conveyed to them by college management, often receiving contact details of high-ranking students either directly from these private medical colleges or through the list of NEET-PG qualified candidates publicly shared by the National Medical Commission.
Student’s credentials are misused to block a seat under management quota. As the student is unaware of his allotment, he never reports to the college, and the college gets to declare the said seat as either withdrawn or not-reported or discontinued, which is then filled as a stray vacancy under MQ-3 category.
Case 2: Paid exit and seat retention
This is a case of active connivance of students with middlemen. Students with mid-range ranks, who are not financially capable of taking admissions in MQ, get seat allotment despite their intention to re-appear next year for improving their rank and joining under CQ category.
Students who were allotted a seat in first phase of counselling download allotment letter by paying university fee (49,500), although they either never intended to pursue the course with private medical college under MQ or get dissuaded by college management who demand high fees payment and bank guarantee deposit upfront.
They report to the college with all required documents, but instead of paying the college fees (via demand drafts), they follow the advice of middlemen to retain their seat until mop-up round. These students neither pay any fees nor submit required DDs for admission. They are assured of penalty payment by middlemen along with a fixed amount to be paid as a lump sum after successful seat blocking.
As planned, after the reporting deadline, students take a paid exit, by paying penalty ranging from 5 lakh to 50 lakh, depending on the academic year guidelines of KNRUHS, through DDs. These DDs have to be submitted to the private medical colleges for payment to KNRUHS. Investigations revealed that middlemen were depositing cash into accounts of these students to purchase DDs, which were later used to pay penalties to KNRUHS on behalf of students.
It was also discovered that college authorities themselves provided funds used by middlemen for issuing DDs and paying penalties. In return, the middlemen and the students involved in these fraudulent activities received additional money beyond penalty amount. After paid exit, the college re-allocated these seats to other candidates for a premium fee.
In the case of a few colleges like Malla Reddy Institute of Medical Sciences, the colleges themselves started making payment for DDs through their bank accounts in order to avoid scrutiny by KNRUHS.
Case 3: Retention of seat and paid exit via middlemen
Students initially secure a seat through KNRUHS counselling process and verify their documents at college. However, they later decide to take a free exit before stipulated deadline, intending to join another college or discontinue for any other reason. The college authorities, in collaboration with middlemen, persuade these students to retain their seat until the mop-up round, promising them compensation, including a waiver of their penalty fee, if they agree to take a paid exit.
These students are assured by middlemen that they will receive some money for retaining seat and their penalty fees will be covered by college authorities. After the mop-up round, students take the paid exit and pay the penalty, which is arranged by the middlemen, either through their own accounts or from the accounts of associates.
Modus of filling seats declared as stray vacancy
In all the above cases, seats reported to be stray after mop-up round of counselling are filled by colleges themselves under MQ-3 category. In this process, there is no relevance of provisional final merit list. However, the student should have qualified the cut-off of NEET PG as declared by NMC and must be nominated by college management.
Investigation revealed that every year, the college top management gets specific references for PG medical admissions in premium courses. These students are given preference over merit list students for admissions in the MQ-3 category. Further, the private medical colleges also prefer to take admissions in the MQ-3 category as they can charge up to three times the fees collected from MQ-1 category admissions. In this way, college management can derive both tangible and intangible benefits from deliberate creation of stray vacancies by way of seat blocking in MQ-1 seats.
Once NMC reduces the cut-off, there are many eligible high-net-worth candidates who are willing to pay MQ-3 category fees along with a capitation fee, for getting desired stream at their choice of college. Once this estimate is received by the colleges, they contact middlemen to block seats.
In the academic year 2021-22, upon observing a large number of stray vacancies, KNRUHS conducted two additional rounds of counselling leading to stray vacancies getting filled by regular counselling and thwarting attempted seat blocking.
