The Travancore Cochin Medical Council (TCMC) has expelled the owner of Al Shifa Hospital for Piles, Shajahan Yoosaf Sahib, from its membership and has decided to removed his name from the Council’s list with immediate effect as it was proved that the certificate of qualification submitted by him was fake.
The decision was taken unanimously by a full council meeting held in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.
A letter from the Assistant Secretary of the Medical Council of India (MCI), Rajeev Kumar, was submitted in the Council stating that the MCI had never issued any certificate to Mr. Sahib. In fact, the certificate that he had submitted carries a registration number issued on that date to another doctor, a woman, who is a medical practitioner in Palakkad.
The TCMC had registered Mr. Sahib in 2011 based on the certificate said to be issued by the MCI to him in 2009 for graduating in medicine from a Russian university. However, when allegations about him came up, it was found by the TCMC officials that a letter verifying the certificate, which was the norm when the MCI issues the registration number, was missing from the file. While it was unclear at that time whether a query was ever sent from the TCMC seeking the verification or whether the MCI reply was missing from the file there, a new query in the wake of complaints, was said to have been sent by the TCMC to verify the certificate issued by the MCI in 2009. One of the members of the TCMC too personally verified with the MCI office in New Delhi to find out whether the MCI had issued a certificate to Mr. Sahib.
Registration with MCI
It was the norm during the period 2001-2015 for those who studied medicine abroad to register with the MCI as they also had to clear the eligibility certificate examination conducted by the National Board of Examinations.
Others used to get registered with the respective State Councils.
The eligibility certificate issued along with the registration was also missing from Mr. Sahib’s file at the TCMC. Now the norm is to register only with the State Council.
The TCMC had already begun a drive to re-register the certificates to weed out any frauds.
TCMC has also decided to give a complaint to the Director General of Police against Mr. Sahib for cheating and fraud.
