Courts should not play a role in the making of “half-baked doctors” by allowing unequipped medical colleges to carry out admissions, the Supreme Court has cautioned in a recent verdict.
A Bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Vineet Saran dealt with the admission of over 500 students to four private medical colleges in Kerala, which were found to have poor infrastructure. The State High Court had set aside the decisions of the Medical Council of India and the government to bar admissions to these colleges in 2018-19. It gave the colleges a second chance to remove the deficiencies and asked the MCI to carry out fresh inspections. It said the MCI could take “appropriate action” if the defects continue to remain.
Quashing the High Court order, the Supreme Court held that admissions of students should not be on such conditional basis. Why had the High Court allowed the admissions to be carried on despite knowing very well that the colleges were sub-standard? “Such orders may ruin the entire career of the students. Once permission to admit students is granted, it should not be such conditional one,” Justice Mishra wrote in his 37-page judgment for the Bench.
Dangerous prospect
“Half-baked doctors cannot be let loose on society like drones and parasites to deal with the lives of patients in the absence of proper educational training.
“It would be dangerous and against the right to life itself in case unequipped medical colleges are permitted to impart substandard medical education without proper facilities and infrastructure,” the Supreme Court observed.
