Madras HC agrees for Urgent Hearing on plea challenging NMC Fee Order
Chennai: Considering the fact that the Fee Regulatory Committees in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry might notify the fees for the private medical colleges anytime soon, the Madras High Court on Tuesday agreed for an urgent hearing of the pleas challenging the fee order by the National Medical Commission, which had decided that the fees for the 50% of the private medical college seats would be at...
Chennai: Considering the fact that the Fee Regulatory Committees in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry might notify the fees for the private medical colleges anytime soon, the Madras High Court on Tuesday agreed for an urgent hearing of the pleas challenging the fee order by the National Medical Commission, which had decided that the fees for the 50% of the private medical college seats would be at par with the Government institutes.
The HC bench comprising Chief Justice Minishwar Nath Bhandari agreed for the urgent hearing after the counsel for Education Promotion Society for India, senior counsel Vijay Narayan objected to the delayed hearing of the matter and pointed out that the notifications by the Fee Regulatory Committees could be released any time.
He also claimed that NMC, the Apex medical body was forcing the Fee Committees to comply with the NMC fee order while deciding the fees for the private medical colleges.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that complaining about the NMC Fee order for the 50% seats in the private medical colleges, the institutes and deemed to be universities had approached the Madras High Court.
In the concerned Fee order issues back in February 2022, NMC the Apex Medical Body had clarified that the fees of 50 per cent seats in the private medical colleges would be at par with government medical colleges of that particular State/UT.
"After extensive consultations, it has been decided that the fee of the 50 per cent seats in the private medical colleges and deemed universities should be at par with the fee in the government medical colleges of that particular State and UT. The benefit of this fee structure would be first made available to those candidates who have availed government quota seats, but are limited to the extent of 50 per cent of the total sanctioned strength of the respective medical college/deemed university," NMC had mentioned in the notification.
"However, if the government quota seats are less than 50 per cent of total sanctioned seats, the remaining candidates would avail the benefit of a fee equivalent to the government medical college fees, based purely on the merit," NMC had added.
However, no matter how promising this sounds to the medical aspirants, who choose to leave India and move abroad for cheaper medical education, such a rule fails to take into consideration the plights if the private medical college managements who pay lakhs and crores of money to set up the infrastructure.
Therefore, upset with the NMC order, the management of private medical college had urged the Union Health Ministry to direct NMC for withdrawing the diktat. The Apex medical body, however, did not withdraw its decision and consequently, a host of private medical colleges and deemed to be universities recently approached the Madras HC seeking relief.
In their plea, the colleges challenged the Constitutional validity of Section 10 (1) (i) of the National Medical Commission Act of 2019 under which NMC had issued the concerned office memorandum regarding the fee at private medical colleges. Praying the court to quash the concerned memorandum, the senior counsel for one of the institutes, Vijay Narayan informed the court about the heavily subsidized fee in the government medical colleges and pointed out that it would be impossible for the private medical institutes to charge similar amount of fees for 50% of their total seats.
As per the latest media report by The Hindu, the plea had been partly heard by the Division bench comprising of Chief Justice and Justice N. Mala last week. Since the Second judge in the Bench was on leave, the matter came for consideration before the bench comprising of the Chief Justice along with Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy on Tuesday.
The counsel for the colleges, Mr. Narayan urged the bench for half an hour to finish his arguments after which it was decided that the counsel for counsels P.S. Raman, representing Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, and AR.L. Sundaresan, representing an institution from Puducherry, would argue the matter.
Meanwhile, the Additional Solicitor General (ASG) R. Sankaranarayanan informed the court that he would be flying out of the State on Wednesday afternoon and therefore urged to adjourn the matter to August 23 or 24.
However, the proposal for delaying the matter for so long was opposed by the counsel for the colleges, Mr. Narayan who referred to the Court about the threat of impending notification by the fee determination committees.
The Hindu adds that Mr. Narayan also claimed before the bench that NMC, the apex medical body was pressurizing the committees for fixing the fees as per the February 3 office memorandum issued by the Commission. Therefore, the counsel for the private medical institutes urged the court for restraining the committees from issuing the notifications. At this outset, the ASG argued that the State Governments set up the Fee Regulatory Committees.
After considering the arguments by both the parties, the HC bench agreed for an urgent hearing of the matter onto Wednesday and decided to hear the matter between 12 noon and 1.30 PM as the bench took note of the fact that the ASG would remain available in the court until the forenoon session.
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