Supreme Court: The Division Bench comprising of L. Nageswara Rao and Krishna Murari, JJ., dismissed the instant petition for grant of permission for Medical Colleges after observing infrastructural and faculty deficiencies. The Bench remarked,
“It is clear that gross deficiencies still exist in spite of the affidavits and undertakings filed on behalf of the State of Jharkhand. No action has been taken to improve the situation.”
Central government had identified three Districts in the State of Jharkhand namely Dumka, Hazaribagh and Palamu for establishing new Medical Colleges. Pursuant to which State of Jharkhand was granted essentiality certificates to all the three proposed Medical Colleges. Later on, Medical Council of India (MCI) had, after multiple warnings and assessments revoked the permission for allotment of students to Medical Colleges on the ground of several infrastructural and faculty deficiencies. Consequently, all the three colleges had approached the Supreme Court for grant of permission.
Similarly, a petition was also filed by the students who appeared in NEET, MBBS Examination, on being aggrieved by the decision of MCI not to grant approval for admissions to the three Medical Colleges. The grievance of the Petitioners was that 300 seats out of 580 medical seats in the State of Jharkhand were allotted to the above named three Medical Colleges. If permission was not granted to the three Medical Colleges for making admissions for the academic year 2020-2021, the chances of the Petitioners pursuing medical course would reduce.
The Bench observed that establishment of Medical Colleges at Dumka, Palamu and Hazaribagh was an initiative taken by the State of Jharkhand to bolster the availability of medical seats in the State which would increase the number of Doctors in the State. However,
“Perusal of the facts mentioned above would show that not much interest has been taken by the State in ensuring that the necessary faculty, infrastructure and other facilities are improved.”
On 20-08-2019, an affidavit was filed by government of Jharkhand that certain deficiencies had been rectified and the remaining shall be rectified within a period of three months. However, in the inspection conducted by the MCI to consider the renewal of permission for MBBS second batch of students for the academic year 2020-2021 gross deficiencies were found to exist in all the three Medical Colleges. Considering the above mentioned, the Bench said that permission could not be granted for allotment of students to Medical Colleges which lack the necessary infrastructure and facilities.
Observing that gross deficiencies still exist in spite of the affidavits and undertakings filed on behalf of the State of Jharkhand and no action had been taken to improve the situation, the Bench directed state to rectify all the deficiencies that had been pointed out by the MCI at the earliest and make an application for renewal of permission for admission of the second batch of MBBS students for the academic year 2021-2022.
In the light of above, the instant petition was dismissed.
[Dumka Medical College v. Medical Council of India, 2021 SCC OnLine SC 122, decided on 16-02-2021]
Kamini Sharma, Editorial Assistant has put this report together