HC Relief to Maheshwara Medical College, Govt Directive to Transfer PG Medicos Set Aside

Hyderabad: In a major relief to Maheshwara Medical College, which had earlier faced the National Medical Commission's wrath for submitting fake bank guarantees to PG medical courses, the Telangana High Court has set aside the Union Health Ministry's directive last year directing the Kaloji Narayana Rao University for Medical Sciences (KNRUHS) to relocate PG medical students from the medical college to other private institutes.

Apart from overturning the Health Ministry's directives issued on November 13 and 14 last year, the HC bench of Justice Surepalli Nanda has also directed the Union Ministry to re-evaluate the second appeal filed by the medical college against the NMC's decision of withdrawing permissions for the PG medical courses at the medical college from the academic year 2021-2022 onwards.

NMC had granted permission to the medical college in 2021 to commence 12 postgraduate medical courses as per the statutory provisions. Based on the rules, the college management had furnished 12 bank guarantees of Rs 85,00,000 each to the authorities.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that NMC, the apex medical education regulatory body had withdrawn the letter of permissions granted to the College after the institute submitted fake bank guarantee documents of Bank of Baroda.

Also Read: HC rejects Medical College's plea seeking NMC permission for PG Medical Courses

Accordingly, NMC and other authorities had directed the MCC to stop admissions on February 24, 2022. However, as per the latest media report by Deccan Chronicle, the college had admitted students by showing the letter of permissions. Following this, the college furnished seven and five valid bank guarantees, respectively, but, the authorities did not accept the fresh bank guarantees. Meanwhile, despite the specific direction not to admit any students, the college had admitted students for the academic year 2022-2023.

Therefore, NMC had ordered shifting of students admitted for the academic years 2021-22 and 2022-23. The authorities on February 8, 2023, directed the Kaloji Narayana Rao University to shift the students admitted to the medical college in postgraduate medical courses for the academic year 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, to other medical colleges in the State.

Based on the recommendations by NMC, the Union Ministry had directed the university to shift the students. Challenging this decision, the medical college approached the High Court and submitted that the orders were issued without hearing its contentions. 

After considering the arguments and taking note of the issue concerning the medical students' career, future and academic lives, the judge directed the Union Ministry to reconsider the issue after providing an opportunity to the college.

Accordingly, the bench overturned the directives issued on November 13 and 14 by the Union Health Ministry to KNRUHS asking it to relocate the PG medical students from the medical college to other private institutes. Further, the Court directed the Ministry to re-evaluate the second appeal filed by the medical college, challenging the NMC decision of stopping admissions, Edex Live has reported.

Earlier, the college had challenged the NMC decision before the Telangana High Court, which had rejected the plea of the college seeking NMC permission tu run PG medical courses.

Back then, the college had submitted that it had not committed any fraud. It was argued by the college's counsel that the fraud had been committed by the consultant with whom the college had an agreement. Further, the counsel had claimed that the college had submitted genuine guarantees to NMC.

Also Read: Grace Marks not Statutory right! HC upholds NMC provision, disposes of plea by MBBS students