A day after TOI exposed the MBBS admission scam in Madhya Pradesh, the medical education department ordered all six government medical colleges in the state to collect all documents, including premedical test (PMT) answer sheets, and refer cases of fraud to the police. The papers will also be sent for forensic examination. 

   TOI had reported on Wednesday how, in a real life parody of the Bollywood comedy ‘Munnabhai MBBS’, no less than 114 students had fraudulently sneaked into MBBS courses in government medical colleges after paying crores of rupees through touts to doctors and senior medical students from other states to write their test papers. Although the government probed fraud committed after 2009, there is widespread apprehension that many more students may have used the same route to get into MBBS in years before; some may even be practicing now.
   “All six medical colleges have been instructed to collect documents from the MP Professional Examination Board, which conducts the PMT,” said Dr S C Tiwari, director, medical education.
   “We have written to all of them instructing them to recover all documents including PMT answer sheets, and refer all fraud cases to the police.” Tiwari added that action would follow in each case only after forensic tests proved fraud. Dr Nirbhay Shrivastava, dean of Bhopal’s Gandhi Medical College, said the college has procured documents from the Professional Examination Board and referred them to the police. These are likely to be soon submitted for forensic tests at the government laboratory in Sagar. An examination board spokesman said all documents post-2009 are archived. “Ordinarily, we preserve exam documents for six months, but we keep PMT records for longer. I think all documents and answer sheets from 2009 onwards are available,” said Shrivastava.  Interestingly, Junior Doctors Association (JUDA) president Ashok Thakur declined to either welcome or oppose the probe. “We would ask government agencies to ensure that innocent students are not implicated,” he said.