Medical Assessment & Rating Board Entrusted To Regulate Medical Education In India, Must Show Prima Facie Justification For Its Orders: Delhi HC

The Delhi High Court has observed that the Medical Assessment & Rating Board (MARB) is an authority entrusted with an important task of regulating medical education in India. Thus, it is expected to at least prima facie show some justification for its decisions.It added that MARB cannot be given unbridled power to routinely overrule the assessors' inspection reports pertaining to medical institutes, merely on suspicions.It stated that such arbitrariness on part of MARB cannot be countenanced as it is antithetical to Article 14 of the Constitution of India."If the MARB were to make such far-reaching observations, merely on the basis of suspicion and that too without even giving any opportunity to the institute, its action would not only be violative of the principles of natural justice but would also amount to giving unbridled power to the MARB to routinely overrule the assessors reports, which would be whole impermissible," Justice Rekha Palli observed.The Bench thus allowed a writ petition filed by Dr M.K. Shah Medical College and Research Centre, Ahmedabad (petitioner) and held that MARB's orders rejecting the former's applications for commencing new postgraduate medical courses and increasing the number of seats for admission in a few other courses were based on wholly non-existent grounds, and found them to be issued in an arbitrary manner. The Court did not find any deficiency in the infrastructure or the clinical material of the petitioner, and directed the respondent to forthwith issue the letters of permission, as per the petitioner's applications. "…in the present case, it evidently emerges that it is not as if the experts who had inspected the petitioner institute had found any deficiency with the petitioner institute, but it is the MARB which has chosen to ignore those reports and form its own arbitrary conclusions, without giving any opportunity to the petitioner to explain the so-called deficiency or suspicious information" It added,"When every institute is entitled to an opportunity to explain the deficiency found in an inspection report, there is no reason as to why a similar opportunity ought not to have been given to the petitioner to explain the so-called suspicious circumstances noted by the MARB from the inspection reports which were otherwise in order."In March 2020, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (Ministry) had issued a public notice inviting medical colleges to apply for increase of seats/commencement of postgraduate (PG) disciplines. Responding to this notice, the petitioner, had sought permission to admit students in 13 PG disciplines. However, the respondent had rejected the petitioner's applications seeking permission for commencing 3 courses, and partially allowed the latter's applications seeking permission for commencing certain other courses. As regards increase of seats, after an initial disapproval, the petitioner was permitted to admit an increased number of students in 2 disciplines, with no inspection carried out with respect to the remaining courses. The reasons cited in the disapproval letters issued to the petitioner were lack of "essentiality certificate" and non-recognition of PG courses. Interestingly, the Medical Council of India regulations provide that an institution which already has permission for starting an MBBS course does not require formal permission for commencing a post graduate course. In the instant matter, the petitioner had already received the Ministry's assent for its establishment and commencement of MBBS programme in 2017 The petitioner approached the respondent seeking a review of the disapproval letters and preferred appeals before a designated Appellate Committee since it did not receive any reply to its initial request for review. When the respondent refused to entertain its appeal as well, the aggrieved petitioner approached the Delhi High Court by way of a writ petition seeking quashing of the disapproval letters. The court, in its order during a preliminary consideration in Jan 2022, found merit in the petitioner's plea that both the grounds on which the respondent had rejected the petitioner's applications were erroneous. The court, observing that though the petitioner has statutory remedies for filing appeals under the National Medical Council Act 2019, rejected the respondent's objection on maintainability of the writ petition on the ground that those remedies would not be efficacious at the eleventh hour when the counselling period for admission to the relevant courses is about to end. "Since the Court, prima facie, finds substance in the submissions addressed on behalf of the petitioner, the Court is of the view that before the petitioner is forced to pursue the alternative remedy, if at all, the respondents would have to establish at least at the threshold level that there would be a substantial dispute with respect to the legal position as...

Medical Assessment & Rating Board Entrusted To Regulate Medical Education In India, Must Show Prima Facie Justification For Its Orders: Delhi HC

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