New Delhi, May 5
The Ministry of Law and Justice is learnt to have told the Health Ministry that it had no role to play in the Medical Council of India as per the existing laws. The legal experts reacted in a negative to a clarification sought by health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who wanted to know if he could put eminent doctors in charge of Medical Council of India affairs while its president Ketan Desai faced a CBI probe for bribery charges.

Azad had written to law ministry for advice on whether such an arrangement would be legally tenable. Only yesterday, the minister told the Rajya Sabha that he wanted to follow the due legal path in respect of the MCI and its regulation.

Along these lines, the health minister had sought law ministry’s suggestion on how to go about in the present case. The law experts, in their reply to the ministry’s letter, are learnt to have said that as per the current Medical Council of India Act, the ministry had no role either in appointment or in removal of its president or members.

Citing an old occurrence of 1991 when the High Court, post the removal of Desai in a similar kind of case as the ongoing one, appointed an administrator for the MCI, the law ministry said that the then vice-president of the Council moved the Supreme Court against the lower court’s order, seeking protection of his right to succeed the president when the latter was not there. The apex court then appointed a committee under which elections to the Council were held and existing vacancies filled. As per the MCI Act, 1956, there is no cause to hand over the charge of MCI affairs to anyone in the absence of its president, the law ministry reportedly clarified to Azad, adding that the current vice-president of the Council would continue to preside over meetings.

The health minister is for a new law to regulate the MCI. He referred yesterday to how the proposed amendment bill to MCI Act, introduced in 2005, was vetoed earlier by the Parliamentary Standing Committee. The said amendment sought to fix the tenure of MCI president and vice president to two terms and give government the powers to remove MCI authorities.