Violating AYUSH ministry’s guidelines, KU allots MD seat to RRIUM official’s relative

SRINAGAR — In blatant violation of guidelines set by the Ministry of Ayush, University of Kashmir allotted an MD seat in its Regional Research Institute of Unani Medicine (RRIUM) to the blue-eyed candidate of its Assistant Director in place of the deserving candidate.

The Ministry of AYUSH conducted counselling for all India quota seats of Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani & Homoeopathy (ASU & H) UG & PG courses for the academic year 2020-21 in February this year.

Kashmir University’s RRIUM held stray counselling for MD Unani (Ilmul Advia) in February and issued the provisional selection list of four candidates on 26th of the same month.

However, one of the candidates in the provisional selection list was Khan Sabiha Arzoo from Uttar Pradesh, a close relative of Assistant Director RRIUM, Seema Akbar. Citing COVID-19 as the reason, Arzoo didn’t appear in physical counselling and as per KU, she appeared online.

But as per the ministry’s guidelines, that the candidate must be physically present during the time of admission/verification of documents at the college. As per guidelines, no online counselling will be considered for selection. But KU bent the rules to favour the blue-eyed candidate.

Sources said that all the formalities including filing application form etc were done in the office of the Assistant Director for the candidate and she had only mailed her documents.

“The candidate who was selected was not physically present at the time of counselling as per the guidelines, but was put in the selected list against the norms. I objected to the selection of the said candidate & represented in the office of the various concerned authorities of the University on the same day,” the aggrieved candidate Dr Ghulam Nabi Wani said.

Following the objection, the selection of the candidate Khan Sabiha Arzoo was put in abeyance by the KU’s Director of Admissions and Competitive Examinations through a corrigendum dated 03-03-2021 till further orders, mentioning that the candidate was “inadvertently” selected.

The KU formed a six-member committee headed by the Dean Academic Affairs, Professor Shabir Bhat, who after a month gave the report in favour of Khan Sabiha Arzoo, who was finally selected for the MD.

Professor Shabir Bhat said that the selection of Khan Sabiha Arzoo was done by taking a ”unique decision”.

“The selection by the committee was done with all honesty and truth, keeping the extraordinary COVID-19 situation in view. Sometimes, we have to use our wisdom. The RRIUM Director sought instructions from Unani Council of India about the case and she presented the instructions before the committee. So, considering all aspects, the candidate was selected,” Bhat said.