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Medical Council of India v. JSS Medical College & Anr.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal No. 195 of 2016)Decided 12 Jan 2016
Civil Appeal No. 195 of 2016
Justice Madan B. Lokur · Justice R.K. Agrawal

Background

In an earlier decision, Medical Council of India vs JSS Medical College and Another [(2012) 5 SCC 628], the Supreme Court had restricted the college's intake, but JSS Medical College had continued to allow a batch of students to study MBBS without fully complying with that earlier order. By the time this matter reached the Court again, those students had already completed 4½ years of their course and were close to finishing it, with intervening students also appearing before the Court.

Decision Breakdown

Balancing the interests of the affected students against the need to enforce discipline on the college, the Court allowed the students to complete their course and obtain their degree if they successfully finished it, but stressed this was on the peculiar facts of the case and not a general relaxation of its earlier ruling. To send a clear message to JSS Medical College and other medical colleges about non-compliance, the Court directed the college to deposit Rs. 5 crore with the Court's Registry within four weeks, explicitly barring it from recovering that amount from students or adjusting it against their fees. It further restricted the college's admissions for the 2016-17 academic year to 150 students instead of the sanctioned strength of 200. The appeal was disposed of with these directions.

Lesson Learnt

Courts can protect students who end up caught in the middle of an institution's regulatory non-compliance, while still penalising the institution itself directly (here, through a substantial deposit and a cut to its admission capacity) so that the cost of defying court orders falls on the wrongdoer, not on the students.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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