The Madras High Court has said it is time the government and the Medical Council of India (MCI) dealt with ill-equipped medical and technical institutions with an iron hand.
Justice K.K.Sasidharan made the observation while dismissing writ petitions filed by nearly 150 students of DD Medical College and DD Hospitals at Kunnavalam in Tiruvallur district.
The students, V.Kameshwaran and others, sought a direction to MCI and the Tamil Nadu Dr.MGR Medical University to forbear from treating their admission to MBBS course during the 2011-12 and 2012-13 as illegal. They also sought a direction to treat them on a par with students of 2010-11 till a decision was taken by the Supreme Court on some Special Leave Petitions (SLPs) filed by the MCI.
The students wanted to appear for the examinations scheduled for August 1. However, the university refused hall tickets stating that MCI had said admission of students for MBBS course for 2011-12 and 2012-13 were made without the MCI’s permission.
The petitioners contended that neither the MCI nor the university informed the public about the rejection of permission for admission to the second year MBBS course. The institution cheated the innocent students.
Mr.Justice Sasidharan said the college had no permission for the academic years 2011-12 and 2012-13. Merely because the petitioners joined the institution without knowing that there was no permission to admit students, it could not be a reason to permit them to write the examination.
The MCI inspected the college and found that there were no institutional and infrastructural facilities to admit the second batch of students.
It refused permission for the academic years 2011-12 and 2012-13. In this era of social awareness and availability of RTI Act, it could not be said the petitioners were victims of false representation.
“This is a classical case where a medical educational institution took the students for a ride. The institution considered the medical education like any other business and by cheating students made unjust enrichment.”
The mushroom growth of ill-equipped medical and technical education was really a threat to society. These medical colleges would produce poor quality professionals and they would start practising the profession without any kind of experience.
Such medical officers would be a liability to society. It was time the government and MCI dealt with such institutions with an iron hand.
