NMC Must Act Fairly As An Organ Of State: SC Imposes ₹ 10 Lacs Cost On NMC While Dismissing Plea Challenging Direction To Increase Seats In Medical College
The Supreme Court has imposed a cost of Rupees 10 Lacs on the National Medical Commission while dismissing a Special Leave Petition challenging the order of Kerala High Court directing to grant approval to increase of seats in a medical college.
The Bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice KV Viswanathan held, “Prima facie, we find that the attitude of the NMC is not of a model litigant. The NMC is an organ of the State and is expected to act in a fair and reasonable manner…Making a party run from Court to Court to seek permission, specifically when the institute concerned is not a new institute and has been running for the last 18 years, in our view, is only an attempt to harass the institution. Particularly, when the approval granted earlier for the academic year 2023-2024 was withdrawn, no deficiency, except non-grant of COA, was pointed out.”
Senior Advocate Gaurav Sharma appeared for the Petitioners whereas Senior Advocate Maninder Singh appeared for the Respondents.
A special leave petition was filed assailing the order passed by the Kerala High Court directing K.M.C.T. Medical College to file an undertaking as per the previous order and to the National Medical Commission, on receipt of such an undertaking, should be granted permission to the respondent-Medical College.
The Court perused the material placed on record which revealed that by a letter issued by the Medical Assessment & Rating Board (“MARB”), the respondent- Medical College had initially been granted approval for an increase of seats from 150 to 250 for the academic year 2023- 24. However, by a subsequent letter issued by the MARB, it was withdrawn.
It was the case of the Petitioner that the letter of disapproval, the MARB had granted disapproval to the respondent-Medical College, giving two reasons: (i) COA is not submitted and (ii) the matter is sub judice in the Court.
The Court said, “We find that merely because the matter is sub judice in Court could not have been the ground of disapproval of the proposal. If the National Medical Council (for short “NMC”) had any doubts, it could have clearly approached the Court concerned and sought clarification.”
The Counsel for the NMC submitted that the grant of permission has to be considered on an annual basis. He submitted that earlier disapproval was for the academic year 2023-2024, whereas in the present year, they were concerned with the academic year 2024-2025. He submitted that there was no inspection insofar as the academic year 2024-2025 was concerned and, therefore, the High Court was not justified in passing the order which is challenged before this Court.
The Court directed, “We are, therefore, of the view that the present special leave petitions are an abuse of the process of law and, therefore, dismissed with cost quantified at Rs.10,00,000/- to be paid within four weeks from the date of this order. The cost of Rs.5,00,000/- shall be deposited in the Supreme Court Advocates-on-Record Association to be used for the purpose of Library and the cost of Rs.5,00,000/- shall be deposited with the Supreme Court Bar Association Advocates Welfare Fund.”
The High Court had said that the previous disapproval was only on the basis of the fact that the University had rejected the consent for increasing the number of seats owing to certain deficiencies qua educational qualifications of the faculty members. Once the College had already given an undertaking, the permit should have been granted.
The High Court had ordered, “In our considered view the Medical Counsel would consider pragmatically for issuing the consent for the reason that the undertaking has been submitted by the petitioner to overcome a minor deficiency regarding the educational qualification of the faculty which has been shown to us on the previous date of hearing by submitting a fresh list conforming to the conditions as provided under the National Medical Commission Act.”
Accordingly, the Court dismissed the petition.
Cause Title: The National Medical Commission & Anr. v. The Principal K.M.C.T. Medical College & Ors.
Appearances:
Petitioners: Senior Advocate Gaurav Sharma, AOR Prateek Bhatia, Advocates Dhawal Mohan, Paranjay Tripathi, Rajesh Raj, Ankita Dogra.
Respondents: Senior Advocate Maninder Singh, AOR Aswathi M.K. and Advocates Niraj Bobby Paonam.