From Sanjeev Dube
NEW DELHI : On May 13 the worried medical study aspirants got a major relief from the Supreme Court which vacated stay on the declaration of National-Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) results.

A three-judge bench presided over by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir modified its December 13 order, which paved the way for announcement of NEET results -- a test introduced by the Medical Council of India (MCI).

The court order, in effect, implies that all private and government colleges can announce the results for admissions for the academic year 2013-14. The court will deliver its final verdict on NEET on July 2 or 4.

“The students, who aspire to gain entry to the medical colleges at the MBBS and BDS and the postgraduate levels, have been caught in a legal tangle for no fault of theirs and are victims of policy decisions. In order to safeguard their interests, as also the interest of the hospitals, we consider it just and equitable to lift the bar imposed by us on December 13, 2012, for this year’s entrance examinations,” the court said.

“We modify our order of December 13, 2012, and allow the results of the examinations already conducted to be declared to enable the students to take advantage of the same for the current year.” The court, however, said its judgment on the validity of the NEET would be passed in July.

It added: “We are also alive to the fact that it is the postgraduate students in the medical colleges who take charge of the medical treatment of patients in the hospitals. Without fresh entrants into the postgraduate courses, even for a year, the hospitals are likely to be adversely affected on account of lack of doctors to directly take care of the patients.”

About 65,000 students can now be admitted to the various postgraduate, MBBS and BDS (dental) courses across the country. Teaching hospitals, where PG students make up a large chunk of the junior doctor workforce, have been spared a possible crisis.

On December 13 last year, the apex court had prohibited the publication of results of medical admission tests conducted this academic year till it had decided on a batch of 115 petitions before it.

The case before the court relates to a MCI order of December 2010 relating to NEET — for postgraduate and undergraduate medical and dental courses. The order said the NEET would be the sole entrance exam across India and that the states and private medical colleges cannot have their separate admission tests.

Many states, private medical colleges and other educational institutions challenged the MCI move in various courts across the country, arguing it was an infringement on their rights.

After passing the December 13 order, the apex court transferred to itself a batch of 115 petitions on the matter on January 15. But it could not complete the hearing before the court went into summer vacation on May 13.

If the court later decides in favour of the MCI and scraps the state-conducted entrance exams, the judgment will only have prospective effect — this year’s admissions would not be affected.

Bengal and many other states had anyway decided to comply with the MCI order and did not hold their own medical entrance tests this year, but some states and private medical colleges did. Bengal students took the NEET for postgraduate courses in November last year and the NEET for MBBS courses on May 5.

Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and several associations of private medical colleges, among others, had filed petitions in their respective High Courts and obtained an interim stay on NEET applicability to them. Aggrieved, the MCI filed transfer petitions and these cases stood transferred to the Supreme Court to avoid multiplicity of proceedings.

CMC, 75 others allowed to hold own entry test

By Sanjeev Dube
NEW DELHI: On December 13 the Supreme Court allowed private religious and linguistic minority institutions to hold their own admission tests for medical courses but bluntly refused to stay the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for 2013-14.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Altamas Kabir and Justices S SNijjar and J Chelameswar, however, directed the colleges to withhold the results till the objection of the consortium of private colleges is decided by the apex court before January 18.

The bench, in its interim order, allowed Christian Medical College, Vellore and 75 other petitioner minority medical colleges, who had moved the apex court on December 10, to conduct their own admission tests to fill MBBS and MD seats.

Senior advocates K K Venugopal, K Parasaran, Harish Salve, Rajeev Dhawan and P P Rao pointed out that since NEET was to take place from the next academic session, the court would serve public interest by staying it for a year.

However, Medical Council of India counsel, senior advocate Nidesh Gupta, pointed out that many private and government colleges have already opted for NEET to select candidates and a stay on it would not serve public interest. But it was also pointed out that in some states, the high courts had stayed NEET, allowing state-based medical colleges to have their own
entrance tests.

The court, however, declined to stay NEET while allowing private minority institutions to conduct their own tests and posted the petitions for final hearing on January 14. It said the fate of the individual sate-level tests would be subject to the final outcome in court.

The petitioner colleges had claimed exemption from NEET on the ground that they, being either religious or linguistic minority colleges, were entitled to autonomy in administration of their educational institutions under Article 30 of the Constitution.

The order came as a big relief for colleges including Christian Medical College, Vellore who had announced and publicised the date of their admission tests. Some colleges had even received applications from admission seekers. With the Supreme Court expected to break for vacations, the matter would have extended to January. For this reason, the colleges had urged for an interim order.

The colleges had demanded the apex court to examine the question of law raised by them as admissions to MBBS/BDS courses would follow by May-June next year. The apex bench devised a middle path by directing both the minority colleges and the Centre to hold separate examinations without disclosing results. The colleges were allowed to notify students about
the exam and the pending case in SC in order to clarify that based on the final outcome of the petitions, the court would decide whether private minority colleges were bound by NEET result.

Meanwhile a report from Hyderabad said that the officials of the Medical Education and Higher Education Departments were in favour of waiting till the Supreme Court conducts the final hearing in the third week of January before announcing the schedule for EAMCET, as any announcement at this stage may create more confusion among students.

Backgrounder

Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and several associations of private medical colleges, the Christian Medical College, Vellore, DD Medical College and DD Hospital, Tamil Nadu, and various individual colleges had filed petitions in respective High Courts and obtained an interim stay on NEET applicability.

Aggrieved, the MCI filed petitions seeking transfer of these cases to the Supreme Court to avoid multiplicity of proceedings. The Supreme Court, while staying all further proceedings, issued notice to the respondent colleges/States/associations seeking their response.

In the interim order passed on the petitions, the Bench said that while the main pending matters needed to be decided early, “the time taken in hearing the matters should be utilised in allowing the students to sit for their examinations which have been already notified. Accordingly, let all the transferred cases, as well as the writ petitions, be listed for final hearing and disposal on January 15, 16 and 17, 2013.”

MCI to stay, Human Resource for Health Bill off

NEW DELHI: Strong Centre-vs-states polarisation has forced the Union government go slow on the Human Resource for Health Bill 2011 which has drawn the wrath of three strong political opponents of the ruling UPA coalition.

According to indications available here the direct fallout of the Union-state tiff would be that the scam-tainted Medical Council of India (MCI) and Dental Council of India (DCI) would get a fresh lease of life.

Though as many as 10 states backed the National Commission for Human Resources for Health Bill, 2011, stiff opposition from Mamata Banerjee, Narendra Modi and Jayalalitha sealed the fate of the bills in the Parliamentary Standing Committee this week which was examining the legislation.

Officials representing West Bengal, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu raised several questions on the rationale of forming the over-arching regulatory commission for medical education, loaded with “experts” picked by the Centre.

Barely two months before Trinamool Congress severed ties with the Congress-led UPA government, the principal secretary of West Bengal informed the Parliamentary panel that the state was not in favour of passing the bill in its present form as it proposed shifting self-regulation of professional bodies to a central and technocratic regulator.

“A properly strengthened individual council with a term limit and definition of the office bearers as public servants in terms of Indian Penal Code, besides an accountability mechanism in place would suit the need better than having an over-arching body with gigantic mandate,” he said in his deposition on July 31.

Besides MCI and DCI, the proposed NCHRH sought to replace Indian Nursing Council and Pharmacy Council of India with an umbrella organisation.

The apex council would have three constituent bodies to look after educational standards, enforcement and ethical medical practice.

“The bill attempts to create amechanism so overwhelming that it is likely to breed delays. The three constituent bodies are purely nominative in character and there is no democratic element. Since medical education is a concurrent subject, some representation to the states is a must in the proposed commission,” said principal secretary to Gujarat government, in his
statement, which is a part of the Parliament panel’s report.

This would undermine the powers of the state governments and leave them with no role to play in policy issues, said Tamil Nadu in its deposition.

While the Central government sought to eradicate corruption from professional medical education bodies, the states insisted that determining term limits and definition of office-bearers and a provision to remove them in case of blatant corruption or misuse of official power would have sufficed to cleanse the existing councils.

Rejection of the NCHRH Bill by the House panel and possible revival of the MCI may figure at the state health ministers’ conference here on Friday to discuss issues concerning medical education and human resources versus health.

SC tells medical colleges, don't offend MCI norms

NEW DELHI : The Supreme Court has warned private medical colleges on admitting students in blatant defiance admission norms stipulated by the  Medical Council of India (MCI) from time to time.

Issuing this warning, a Bench of Justices A.K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar made it clear that the MCI Regulations must be strictly adhered to by the medical colleges.

Reiterating directions it had issued in the case of ‘Priya Gupta vs. State of Chhattisgarh,’ it said the MCI, the Centre, the States and medical colleges should strictly adhere to the admission schedule prescribed by the MCI. Any default in compliance with these conditions or attempt to overreach these directions shall, without fail, invite penal actions.

The Bench said, “It is difficult and not even advisable to keep some windows open to meet a particular situation of exception, as it may pose impediments to the smooth implementation of laws and defeat the very object of the scheme. These schedules have been prescribed upon serious consideration by all concerned. They are to be applied stricto sensu and cannot be moulded to suit the convenience of some economic or other interest of any institution, especially, in a manner that is bound to result in compromise of the principles.”

The Bench reiterated the following directions: commencement of new courses or increases in seats of existing courses of MBBS/BDS are to be approved/recognised by the Government of India by July 15 of each calendar year for the relevant academic sessions of that year.

The MCI shall, immediately thereafter, issue appropriate directions and ensure the implementation and commencement of admission process within one week thereafter; After July 15 of each year, neither the Union of India nor the Medical or Dental Council of India shall issue any recognition or approval for the current academic year. If any such approval is granted after July 15 of any year, it shall only be operative for the next academic year and not in the current academic year.

The Bench said: “Any medical or dental college, or seats thereof, to which the recognition/approval is issued subsequent to July 15 of the respective year, shall not be included in the counselling to be conducted by the concerned authority and that college would have no right to make admissions in the current academic year against such seats; The admission to the medical or dental colleges shall be granted only through the respective entrance tests conducted by the competitive authority in the State or the body of the private colleges. These two are the methods of selection and grant of admission to these courses. However, where there is a single Board conducting the State examination and there is a single medical college, then in terms of clause 5.1 of the MCI Eligibility Certificate Regulations, 2002 the admission can be given on the basis of 10+2 exam marks, strictly in order of merit.”

The Bench was dealing with appeals relating to admissions made by Geetanjali Medical College and Hospital in Rajasthan for the year 2008-2009 and Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Hospital in the same State. Geetanjali College got permission from the Union government on September 16 and it admitted 117 students, 101 on the basis of 10 + 2 marks and 16 on the basis of common entrance test conducted by the State. The Rajasthan High Court set aside the admissions on the ground that the admissions were made in violation of MCI Regulations. Similar allegation was made against the Mahatma Gandhi College in respect of admissions of six students.

Disposing of the appeals, the Bench directed that none of the 117 students who were otherwise eligible for admission to the MBBS course would be disturbed from pursuing their MBBS course.

The Bench, however, directed the students to pay Rs. 3 lakh each to the State government within three months. It said: “In the event of default, the students will not be permitted to take the final year examination and the admission of the defaulting students shall stand cancelled and the College will have no liability to repay the admission fee already paid. The amount so paid to the State government shall be spent by it for improvement of infrastructure and laboratories of the government medical college.” The Bench gave a similar direction in respect of six students admitted to the Mahatama Gandhi Medical College and Hospital.

SC whips MCI, scraps all ill taken medical seats

NEW DELHI : In a sweeping judgement on July 4 the Supreme Court not only invalidated the unauthorised MBBS seats annexed by some medical education institutions but went to the extent of ruling that the Medical Council of India is not competent to grant approval to medical courses.