SC Directs A UP Medical College To Deposit Five Crores For Intentionally Violating Medical Council Regulations While Admitting Students

]Supreme Court has on Wednesday directed Saraswati Medical College to deposit an amount of Rupees Five Crores to the Supreme Court's Registry for intentionally violating the Medical Council Regulations by granting admission to students not allotted by the Director General Medical Education. The Court refused to condone the violation made by College in providing admission to 132 students on its own and permitting them to continue despite Medical Council of India's direction to discharge them. The Court has directed the National Medical Commission to constitute a Trust, including the Accountant General of the State of UP, an eminent educationist and a representative of the State as Members of the Trust to manage the amount of Rupees Five Crores to be deposited and utilise it to extend financial assistance to needy students seeking admission to medical colleges in the State of Uttar Pradesh. An Action Taken Report has to be filed by the National Medical Commission within a period of 12 weeks from today. A division Bench of Justice Nageswara Rao and Justice Ravindra Bhat issued the directions in plea filed by Saraswati Educational Charitable Trust challenging 2017 notice issued by the Medical Council of India directing Saraswati Medical College to discharge 132 out of 150 students admitted in the first year of MBBS course for the academic year 2017-2018. The Court also considered another plea filed in 2019 by 71 students in first year MBBS course for the academic year 2017-2018 in Saraswati Medical College seeking permission to continue with their studies and direction to the Uttar Pradesh Medical Council, to declare their results of the first year MBBS course. The Court held that the College should not to have admitted 132 students by conducting a selection on its own without requesting the Director General Medical Education to send more candidates, and the Director General could not be blamed for any delay on his part in carrying out the directions issued by the Supreme Court . The Court rejected the College's submission that there was no other alternative, except to make admission from the list of 735 students who have applied on notice issued by the Director General. The College should not have issued a notice at 7:30 p.m. on 5th September, 2017 and admitted 132 students in four hours. The top Court has observed that even the students who secured admission cannot be said to be innocent as they knew fully well that their names were not recommended by the Director General Medical Education. "The college did not discharge the students even after a notice directing the same was issued by the Medical Council of India, and the students also continued their first year MBBS course and managed to write the first year MBBS course examinations after being permitted by the University. "- the judgement reads. While observing that the admission of these 132 students in the College was completely contrary to the Regulations, the Court considered that as the students have completed the second year MBBS course, cancelling their admissions at this stage would not serve any useful purpose. Therefore the court has directed the students who joined the College knowing that their admissions were contrary to the Regulations, to do community service for a period of two years after completing their MBBS course. The National Medical Commission has been asked to decide the details of the community service to be rendered by the 132 students and workout the modalities. The Court has directed the University to conduct the second year MBBS examination for 126 students admitted in the College and who completed their second year course at the earliest and declare their results. The Court has clarified that these directions have been passed only to save the students from losing three academic years in the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case and shall not be treated as a precedent. FactsSaraswati Medical College, established by Saraswati Educational Charitable Trust applied for grant of renewal of permission for admission of 150 students for the academic year 2017-2018. However, after inspections were conducted, renewal of permission was not granted by an order dated 10th August, 2017. Supreme Court through its order dated 1st September, 2017 directed the respondents, including Union of India and Medical Council of India to permit the College to take part in the counselling process for the year 2017-2018, and extended the cut-off date for completion of admission in respect of the College till 5th September, 2017. The Court also directed the respondents to make available students willing to take admission in the College through central counselling in order of merit. The Director General of Medical Education and Training was requested by the college to provide a list of students from NEET 2017 merit list to enable the College to make...

SC Directs A UP Medical College To Deposit Five Crores For Intentionally Violating Medical Council Regulations While Admitting Students

Srishti Ojha

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