M A I N   N E W S

SC orders inspection of HP medical college
Our Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, September 23
The Supreme Court today directed the Medical Council of India (MCI) to have a fresh inspection of the infrastructural facilities in Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College at Tanda in Himachal Pradesh and 10 other institutions in different states to ascertain whether the deficiencies pointed out by it earlier had been removed or not.

A Bench comprising Mr Justice M.B. Shah and Mr Justice Ashok Bhan directed the MCI to complete the inspection within four weeks and submit a report to it.

The Bench issued the direction after MCI counsel K.K. Venugopal alleged that the ad hoc committee of four expert doctors, appointed by the court to monitor the functioning of medical colleges, had found various deficiencies in 11 medical colleges, of which five were in Andhra Pradesh, two in Maharashtra, one each in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir and two private colleges.

The court also took exception to the Centre granting permission to these colleges to admit the students, especially four Andhra Pradesh colleges increasing the number of seats, by an order issued on August 1 after “bypassing” the MCI recommendations pointing out various infrastructural deficiencies in these institutions.

The court also restrained the Union Government from granting further permission to any new medical college in the country or increase the intake of students in existing colleges without the recommendation of MCI as provided in the Medical Council of India Act, 1956.

The court did not agree with Central government counsel Rakesh Dwivedi’s contention that the Union Government had power under Section 10 of the Act to grant permission after taking into consideration the MCI recommendations.

“Prima facie the Union Government has no power to issue such a direction if the medical colleges are not complying with the recommendations of the MCI,” the court observed.

For maintaining the standard of medical education, it was necessary that the rules laid down in the MCI Act were followed strictly as any laxity would play havoc with the life of people, the court said.

In the case of Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College at Tanda, while the ad hoc committee had pointed out various deficiencies in its inspection made prior to the admission for the 2003-04 academic session, the Himachal Pradesh Government, in its reply, claimed that most of them had been removed.

The MCI had given ad hoc sanction to the college in 1999, which was subsequently renewed every year for admitting the new batch of students with the direction to improve the infrastructural facilities further.

The Union Health Ministry in a communication sent to the Himachal Pradesh government on September 3, had allowed the college to admit students for the current session after the last batch of students had completed 240 days of studies.

The state government further stated that the work on the construction of 500-bed hospital at Tanda with all the required infrastructural facilities would be completed by December, 2005.