MCI Recognition

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notices to Centre, all states, and Medical Council of India (MCI) on a plea seeking direction to the authorities to ensure that the medical institutes do not grant specialised postgraduate degrees which are not recognised by the MCI and other government bodies or do not admit students to such courses.

The petition challenged non-recognition of the specialised postgraduate courses in MD/MS/Diplomas despite the fact that government medical colleges through affiliated universities award such degrees.

A bench comprising Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan and Justice RV Raveendran also sought replies from the UGC, UPSC , National Board of Examinations and various state public service commissions on a petition filed by 56 medical practitioners whose postgraduate degrees awarded by the various government medical colleges were not recognised by the council and other government bodies.

Senior Counsel RS Sodhi and advocate Monika Gusain appearing for the petitioners said, while the universities and government medical colleges are awarding postgraduate medical degrees to doctors, the other state instrumentalities like PGIMER , Chandigarh and Union Public Service Commission are not recognising such degrees.

It is the duty of the MCI to supervise that all the degrees being awarded by all the medical colleges across the country are recognised, said petitioners.

“Majority of the MS/MD degrees awarded by the government medical colleges in India are not recognised by the MCI though the government medical colleges awarding such degrees are at the time of inception given recognition by the MCI,” said the petition.

“If the Medical Council de-recognises institutions, courses or seats, then it means that those institutions, those courses or those seats as the case might be, are not fit for churning out qualified doctors. There has to be a check on these institutions suffering from deficiencies so that they do not admit students or grant them degrees who have inbuilt and hidden incapacity and inadequacy and which would forever in future be of definite danger to the citizens of India at large,” said the petition.

The petition added that the problem of awarding of unrecognised medical degrees and diplomas by the universities is prevalent throughout the country. These unrecognised medical degrees are a common feature in almost all the medical specialities and the main reason for such prevalence seems to be failure of MCI to keep vigil on the proliferating medical education in the country.

The petitioners said that when they entered into correspondence with their respective college authorities, they were told that their postgraduate degrees were recognised. But after applying for the jobs, they were not allowed to appear for the interview. It clearly amounts to inconsistent stands of various government bodies on the issue, submitted petitioner doctors.

Petitioner Dr Mukesh Yadav, MD in Forensic Medicine from GSVM Medical College, Kanpur, was not allowed to appear for interview by UPSC . Another petitioner Dr AK Singh MD (Forensic Medicine), MLN Medical College, Allahabad, was not permitted to appear for interview by BHU , Varanasi, stated the petition, citing many such examples.

The petition sought direction of the apex court to the MCI to furnish details of all the degrees being awarded by all the medical colleges of the country and details of degrees and colleges not recognised by the MCI, UPSC and other government bodies.