Medical colleges need not be given a second chance to rectify their defects if they do not bother even to follow the “basic minimum standards of medical education,” the Supreme Court held.
Regulation 8 (3) (1) (a)
In a recent judgment, a Bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao and M.M. Shantangoudar interpreted Regulation 8 (3) (1) (a) of the Establishment of Medical Colleges Regulations of 1999.
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Regulation 8 (3) (1) provides that a medical college, which failed the Medical Council of India (MCI) inspection, should be given an opportunity to redeem itself and seek a re-inspection.
But even to seek this re-inspection, the errant college should satisfy certain minimum standards. This means that the college cannot afford to have more than 30% deficiency in faculty or residents and the bed occupancy should not be less than 50%
The court held that this “prescription of standards for availing an opportunity to seek re-inspection is not ultra vires” of Regulation 8 or the Indian Medical Council Act.
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Centre’s endorsement
The Centre had firmly endorsed the MCI’s view by submitting that “institutions which do not satisfy the minimum infrastructure and faculty cannot to be given an opportunity to rectify their defects.”
Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh, for the government, said the standards fixed by the MCI were the “bare minimum” and had to be strictly complied with.
“Any lenience shown by this court in providing an opportunity to such institutions to rectify the defects will have a cascading effect in the succeeding years and would result in colleges continuing to function with deficiencies as well as producing half baked and poor quality doctors,” the judgment court records Mr. Singh’s submissions.
The apex court judgment said “medical education must be taken very seriously and when an expert body certifies that the facilities in a medical college are inadequate, it is not for the courts to interfere with the assessment, except for very cogent jurisdictional reasons such as mala fides of the inspection team, perversity in the inspection, jurisdictional error on the part of the MCI, etc.”
The judgment came on an appeal filed by the MCI against a Bombay High Court decision favouring Vedantaa Institute of Academic Excellence Private Limited and Vedantaa Institute of Medical Sciences, both respondents in the apex court. The MCI’s earlier inspection report had found “large scale deficiencies.”
The apex court concluded that both respondents were not entitled to claim another inspection.