Massive scam in Lucknow’s ‘Career Institute of Medical Science (CIMS)’, students defrauded of stipend , threatened and ill-treated
By Our Correspondent
Agartala, August 14, 2026
Despite the introduction of NEET exam for countrywide medical admission, the privately run medical colleges that used to extort exorbitant capitation fees and other charges from all students continue to exploit students by other dubious means like defrauding them of legitimate stipends and extorting money on shady heads. Interestingly, the National Medical Commission (NMC) authority and the state medical education boards and offices keep silent over this sensitive issue in lieu of hefty bribes despite being approached in writing by aggrieved students for redress.
Nothing illustrates the point better than the deplorably corruption-ridden situation and exploitation of students by the ‘Career Institute of Medical Sciences’ in Lucknow , UP. This college is owned by a man named Azmat Ali, a character with a shadily storied past, and his son Mohammed Iqbal Ali who runs the college as Vice Chairman. According to specific complaints filed by a group of aggrieved students to the NMC, the final year MD and MS students of this college had been defrauded of their stipend from May 2025 to November 2025 . After asking for due stipends all the students were threatened with dire consequences by Md Iqbal Ali and his staff who now face 250 cases in different courts in UP. Iqbal went to the extent of threatening to get students killed by his hired henchmen in case they persisted with their legitimate demand for payment of stipend which was never paid up.
According to complaints , the ‘Career Institute of Medical Science’ is legally required to pay stipends at the rate of Rs 1.20 lakh to post-graduate students as per NMC guideline but they used to pay and continue to pay only Rs 40,700.00 to the PG students as to other students also at much lower rates. Besides, as per the norms of the Atal Bihair Vajpayee Medical University with which the ‘Career Institute of Medical Science’ is affiliated the exam fee for post-graduate students is Rs 21,500.00 per head but the institute run by Iqbal and his father Azmat Ali extort Rs 1 lakh from each student-and that too in cash. The students wanting to deposit the exam fee by cheque are threatened with failure in exam and forced to make cash payment so that no proof is left of the perfidy perpetrated on students by Iqbal-Azmat duo. According to NMC guideline, staying in hostel is not mandatory but the institute run by Iqbal and his father Azmat Ali extort Rs 3 lakhs a year from all students as hostel charge. There is no escape from this.
Sources said that after the students had filed a complaint with the NMC authority the corrupt-to-the bone NMC members who receive huge slush money from Iqbal and his father informed them of the matter. As a result Iqbal flaunted his high political connections and close ties with the bureaucracy both in UP and outside the state to silence the complainant students with threats and intimidation. The students were also pressured to withdraw the complaint but when the students refused to oblige Iqbal and his henchmen issued death threats to them saying ‘Yogiji , Modiji hamesha nehi rohenge , a time will come when they will not be there and we will see you all’.
The complainants who are stunned by the inaction of the corrupt NMC , silence of the paid media in UP and refusal by high IAS and IPS officials , on the payroll of Azmat and Iqbal duo, to take action also revealed that Md Iqbal Ali has long been in the habit of abusing girl students by forcing them to go with him to hotels and lodges. At one stage Iqbal had to flee UP for several months after being caught making indecent advances to a politician’s wife. But the amazing thing is that despite being apprised of the entire sordid episode at least five times the NMC is sitting on the complaints without making any inquiry into the murky affairs of the ‘Career Institute of Medical Sciences’only because they are heavily bribed by Iqbal and his farther almost on a monthly basis . The aggrieved students are now trying to take the issue up with the high political level , specially the UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath and union health minister but so far without success.
more news...