The Madras High Court has sought the response of the Centre, the Medical Council of India (MCI) and Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University to a writ petition filed by the Doctors Welfare Association of Tamil Nadu to declare certain postgraduate diploma and fellowship courses run by the university as illegal.
Justice S. Vaidyanathan ordered notices returnable by the first week of June since the general secretary of the association, K. Srinivasan, 63, in his affidavit, claimed that the courses were being run in contravention of the Indian Medical Council Act of 1956 and the Indian Medical Degrees Act of 1916.
The petitioner wanted the court to prevent the university from offering PG diploma in palliative medicine, MD family medicine course through distance education, one-year fellowship in medical sciences such as HIV medicine, occupational health, clinical immunology, palliative medicine and sexual medicine.
He also said that the university should be prevented from offering two-year courses in medical genetics, critical care medicine, clinical diabetology, ultrasound (obstetrics and gynaecology) or any other PG degree, diploma, certificate or fellowship in medical sciences course for which MBBS degree was the eligibility for admission.
The petitioner association, through its counsel Ebenezer, had claimed that the university had been offering and proposing to offer various courses of study and training in medicine without obtaining prior permission from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and without the MCI recognition for those courses.
It stated that an advertisement issued by the university on February 11 stated that some courses were not approved by the MCI. Immediately after seeing the advertisement, the association claimed to have made an application to the university under the Right to Information Act, 2005, seeking details of the MCI-approved courses offered by it.
The reply given by the public information officer of the university would go to prove that at least two courses – M.D. Family Medicine Course and P.G. Diploma in Palliative Medicine – were being conducted without the approval of the MCI, the association said and listed out other courses which according to it were being offered illegally.
