Bengaluru: Providing relief to the petitioners who sought to commence Diploma in General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM) courses, the Karnataka High Court recently directed the Karnataka Government and State Nursing Council to consider the applications at the earliest and take a final call regarding the matter within eight weeks.
Apart from this, the HC single judge bench comprising of Justice P Krishna Bhat also directed in the order that the grant of recognition or refusal order should mention sufficient reasons for the same.
The order read, "(1) Writ petition is disposed of with a direction to respondents to consider the applications of petitioners which were filed in the year 2019 as if it is filed for the Academic Year 2021-22 and take a final decision on the same in the manner indicated hereinabove within an outer limit of eight weeks from today and communicate the decision to the petitioners immediately thereafter.
(2) Needless to say, the order shall contain sufficient reasons for taking the decision either to grant the approval or refuse the approval."
The case concerned the petitioners who intended to start school of nursing for fresh course of Diploma in General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM Course). For this, they had made an application to the concerned authorities in the year 2019 seeking recognition with effect from Academic Year 2019-20.
However, no decision was taken in this regard- either of grant of recognition or refusal of the same. Therefore, the petitioners approached the High Court.
On the other hand, the State Nursing Council of Karnataka informed the High Court that soon after the petitioners had made the applications, the Indian Nursing Council decided to phase out GNM course. Because of this, the applications by the petitioner seeking approval for commencing GNM course remained in the cold storage.
However, another notification was out on 26.11.2020 and with this notification the earlier communication of the Indian Nursing Council was recalled. It was submitted by the Government that after the second notification was issued, a Local Inspection Committee had visited the petitioner's institute.
Despite this, no final decision was taken in this matter, noted the court.
Meanwhile, referring to a communication dated 14.12.2016 issued from the Office of the Principal Secretary to Government addressed to the Registrar, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, the counsel for the petitioner argued that insofar as recognition and approval to the School of Nursing is concerned, there is no need for the University to obtain no objection from the Indian Nursing Council.
The counsel also referred to earlier order of Karnataka High Court in the matter of Union of India and Another vs. KMJ College of Nursing and Kerala High Court order in the matter of K. Velayudhan Memorial Trust vs. State of Kerala and Others to point out that no objection from the Indian Nursing Council is not required for the purpose of University granting recognition or approval for the GNM Course.
Taking note of all the submissions of both the parties, the High Court bench referred to the Stages of Examination of applications and noted, "Now, it is necessary to make a reference to the stages of examination of applications indicated in the statement of objections filed on behalf of respondent No.2. Insofar as stage (a) is concerned, it is only the submission of application under bye-law 49(1)(a) and Schedule IV and IX of the bye-law of Karnataka State Nursing Council and the application has already been submitted during the year 2019."
"With regard to the stages (b) to (g) of consideration of applications is concerned, the concerned respondents shall accomplish each of the stages in the process of consideration of the applications within a period of not more than a week," the bench further observed.
Therefore, opining that the pending applications of the petitioner should be processed at the earliest, the bench ordered, "Thus, pending applications of the petitioners is required to be considered and processed by the respondents within a total period of eight weeks and communicate the decision to the petitioners immediately thereafter. An order of this nature is required to be passed in view of the peculiar facts of this case namely, that applications were filed by the petitioners in 2019 itself and applications have remained without being considered on account of communication at Annexure-R4 (filed with the statement of objections) and subsequent withdrawal of the same as per Annexure-R5."
To read the court order, click on the link below.
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