Chandigarh, August 27
Tightening the screws on nursing institutes flouting government guidelines and functioning without adequate infrastructure, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ordered that no nursing institute, which does not have the requisite infrastructure, will make admissions for the 2005-06 academic session.

In a brief order, passed during hearing of the PIL filed by Mr Jaskaran Singh Brar, seeking regulation of private nursing institutes in Punjab, the Division Bench of Chief Justice Mr Justice D.K. Jain and Mr Justice Hemant Gupta also directed that only those institutes that obtain a certificate from the Punjab Nurses Registration Council (PNRC), certifying that they have basic infrastructure as per the government guidelines, can make fresh admissions.

Sometime back, the same Bench had ordered that students admitted in various nursing institutes after September 30, 2004, the cut-off date for admissions, would not be eligible to sit for the annual exam till they completed the general course of study for the requisite period.

During hearing, advocate Charan Jit Sharma, counsel for the petitioner, prayed that by allowing institutes without adequate infrastructure to function, the government and PNRC were playing with the future of students.

Of the 100-odd nursing institutes in Punjab, a majority don’t have adequate infrastructure, including one building, hostel etc. But, continuing interference by top government functionaries, including Deputy Chief Minister, Ms Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, who also holds the Medical Education and Research portfolio, has allowed the managements of these institutes to flout the norms with impunity.

State-wide raids conducted by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) in October 2004 unearthed serious irregularities being committed by managements of these institutes. The report submitted by the VB to the Home Department also brought out the fact that many nursing institutes were cheating gullible students.

In its order, the Bench has also directed that the institutes must fulfill the criteria laid down in various notifications issued by the Punjab Government from time to time.

These include the notification dated Mach 19, 1984, issued by the Department of Medical Education and Research, Punjab, which laid the eligibility for opening and running a nursing school; guidelines dated May 8, 1998, which laid down norms for issuance of essentiality/no-objection certificates; guidelines relating to minimum requirements necessary for a nursing school to be granted recognition and notification dated July 5, 2004.

Interestingly, as per the notification issued on July 5, 2004, the government made it clear that no admission would be allowed in rented/hired/leased building for the year 2005-06.

“The land and building should be recorded in the ownership of the society/trust running the institute and no deviation shall be permitted”, the notification said.