Reduction of percentage of Non-MBBS faculty members in medical colleges: Delhi HC partial relief to existing teachers

Delhi: In the matter of reduction of the quota of non-MBBS faculty in medical colleges, a recent hearing took place at Delhi High court. The court while refusing to give a stay on the National Medical Commission's (NMC) decision of reducing the quota, in a relief to existing faculty members clearly iterated that the said decision is not going to have any impact on the existing faculty members.

Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that through the notification, issued on 28th October last year by NMC, the percentage of non-medical teachers in the three clinical specialties of anatomy, biochemistry, and physiology had been halved from 30 to 15% whereas the nonmedical teachers had been completely eliminated from para clinical specialties of pharmacology and microbiology. For biochemistry, the hiring limit earlier was a whopping 50 percent but after the notification, it was brought down to 15 percent.

Challenging the said notification, two associations of non-MBBS teachers including National MSc Medical Teachers' Association (NMMTA) as well as Association of PhDs in Medical Sciences took the National Medical Commission to court. The associations demanded an immediate stay on NMC's notification titled "minimum requirement for annual MBBS admission regulations, 2020",

With the arguments going on, the counsel for NMC stated, " the rights of the existing faculty are not sought to be affected and the percentage of such faculty members has been changed only for the future appointment."

The court then noted that the petitioners were current faculty members and questioned the counsel, the cause of action to the present petition and  whether the petition was in the nature of PIL 

The court confirmed that the existing faculty members of medical colleges who have MSc or Ph.D. qualifications can not be affected by the notification.

The petitioners, in the present petition are the existing faculty members having an MSc or Ph.D. qualifications. We have thus enquired from the counsels for the petitioners, what is the cause of action for the petitioners to make the challenge inasmuch as only those aspiring for the faculty positions which have been curtailed, would be affected by the regulations aforesaid. The petitioners or the members of the petitioners already holding a faculty position in medical colleges should not be affected therefrom." 

Therefore, the Bench was of the opinion that the rights of the Petitioners were intact and had been protected in view of this statement and thus the matter would be heard in due course and there was no need for a stay.

At the same time, the counsel for the petitioners pointed out that some of the existing faculty members had also been asked to leave by the medical college in which they are still employed citing the impugned regulation.