The Supreme Court restored recognition to several private medical colleges in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, saying it could not risk medical seats going vacant in the 2014-15 academic year when the country was short of physicians.
“We are conscious of the fact that the number of physicians in our country is much less than what is required and because of non-renewal of recognition of several medical colleges, our citizens would be deprived of a good number of physicians...,” a Special Bench led by Justices Anil R. Dave, Vikramjit Sen and U.U. Lalit observed in a written interim order published on Friday.
The court hearing was held on Thursday.
Several private colleges, including those in other States, were de-recognised by the Medical Council of India (MCI) for not meeting the prescribed standards.
The colleges had recently moved the Supreme Court, stating that the defects pointed out by the MCI had been rectified, and sought a fresh inspection.
But the MCI and the Central government declined to conduct inspections this academic session, citing paucity of time as the reason.
The MCI argued that the colleges had no legal right for getting renewal of recognition for the 2014-15 academic year, and it would “not be just and proper to permit the medical colleges to take fresh a batch of students”.
But the Bench pointed out that the MCI had recently renewed the recognition of government medical colleges on the basis of undertakings given by them, so why should private colleges not be treated with the same yardstick.
‘Special case’Saying that this was a “special case”, the Bench ordered the president/chairman and secretary of the private colleges to file undertakings that there was no defect in their institutions, within the next 10 days.
The order said that their Rs. 10 crore deposit with the MCI would be forfeited as penalty if some defect was found, contrary to their undertakings in the next inspection.
The order said the vacant seats would be filled by students from the merit list prepared by the States and they would be charged fees prescribed by the government medical colleges of their respective States.
The court said admissions to these vacant seats must be completed by September 30, 2014 and a list of students admitted be placed on record in the Supreme Court the next day.
