The Supreme Court has ordered Chattogram Medical College to pay Tk 20 million in damages to a man who was denied admission despite clearing the test to enrol in the MBBS course 43 years ago.
An Appellate Division bench led by Justice Md Nuruzzaman rejected the state’s plea challenging a High Court order in favour of the man, Salil Chakraborty, now in his late 50s.
The court last Wednesday also ordered the principal to pay the compensation, said Eunus Ali Akond, the counsel for Salil.
Further details will be known once the full verdict is published, the lawyer said.
“Forty-three years of a man’s life have been ruined. Who’ll take the responsibility for this? The college should’ve admitted him first. It could’ve cancelled his admission had the allegations against him been proved. It was the college’s fault.”
Salil, a native of Bandarban, studied mathematics after the medical college turned him down. He is running the family business now.
“I’ve won the fight because I never let it go. I didn’t do anything wrong. I fought the legal battle for a long time to prove the allegations against me were unfair,” he said.
“I had trust in the judiciary and now I’ve got justice,” Salil said, demanding legal action against those who were responsible for the incident.
Based on the case documents and his lawyer, Salil appealed to the health ministry, the Directorate General of Health Services and the medical college after the admission fiasco four decades ago.
But the authorities did not accept his plea. The then Anti-Corruption Bureau recommended a criminal case against him, and he was charged. However, he was acquitted in 2000.
Salil then filed a writ petition with the High Court, which ruled in his favour in 2007.
The DGHS challenged the verdict in the Appellate Division, which has now dismissed its plea.
