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Medical Council of India v. N.C. Medical College & Hospital & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2018 INSC 817Decided 13 Sept 2018
Civil Appeal No. 9519 of 2018
Justice Arun Mishra · Justice Indira Banerjee

Background

N.C. Medical College had a troubled compliance history, with repeated MCI inspections from 2015 to 2018 finding serious deficiencies: faculty shortages as high as 87%, missing residents, non-functional OPDs, falsified occupancy/patient records, and even unrelated people found staying in resident hostel rooms. The MCI recommended debarring the college from admitting students for two academic sessions, and the Central Government accepted this. Despite this history, the High Court allowed the college's writ petition and permitted it to admit 150 students for 2018-19, relying on an interim Supreme Court order that had required government approval by a set date, even though that very interlocutory order had itself since been set aside by the Supreme Court in a separate appeal. The MCI appealed this High Court order.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court traced the college's long history of inspections and persistent deficiencies, including fabricated patient data and irregularities discovered during verification visits, and held that the High Court had exceeded its jurisdiction by permitting admissions and by repeatedly passing interim orders in the face of this record and the binding regulatory timetable (the Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2015) governing when admissions must be completed. Since the admission deadlines for the 2018-19 academic year had already passed, the Court held it could not now issue fresh directions for that session. It set aside the High Court's judgment and allowed the MCI's appeal, while leaving the college free to apply afresh for permission for the following academic year (2019-2020) on payment of the requisite fees.

Lesson Learnt

Courts cannot override a medical regulator's documented findings of serious, repeated infrastructure and compliance deficiencies by permitting admissions through interim relief: regulatory timelines for medical college admissions are strict, and a college's remedy for a rejected or debarred session is to reapply and qualify for a future one, not to force admissions into a non-compliant year.

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

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