Telangana HC refuses to stay reallocation of MBBS students to other medical colleges

Hyderabad: While considering a plea filed by TRR College and Mahavir Institute of Medical Sciences (MIMS), whose seats had been cancelled after an inspection by the National Medical Commission (NMC), the Telangana High Court bench recently denied staying the reallocation of medical students to other colleges.

While the Apex medical body NMC had cancelled their seats citing inadequate infrastructure, the colleges moved to the High Court and sought a stay on shifting the students.

It was argued by the counsel for the TRR Institute that the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) of NMC lacked the power for cancelling the admission for which permission had already been granted.

The crisis regarding the medical seats began after the National Medical Commission (NMC) cancelled MBBS and PG medical admission in three private medical colleges in Telangana following a surprise inspection. It resulted in a huge decrease in the total number of seats. In case of MNR Medical College and Hospital, both MBBS and PG admissions had been cancelled. NMC further cancelled PG medical seats in Mahavir Institute of Medical Sciences. Apart from this, TRR Institute of Medical Sciences, Patancheru lost its letter of permission for the first renewal and second batch of admission.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that unsure about their future, recently around 48 such affected PG medical students belonging to MNR Medical College had approached a Division bench of Telangana High Court and sought a direction on the NMC for issuing guidelines to the State for reallocating the students to existing Government and Private Medical Colleges in the State within a specific and short time frame without affecting the Academic year of the Petitioners.

Also Read: NMC seeks action taken report on reallocation of Telangana MBBS, PG medicos

The students also questioned the delay on the part of the Telangana State and KNRUHS for reallocating the students. They claimed that the authorities were not taking the necessary steps to solve this issue even after 20 days have passed since the date of cancellation of the PG admissions in MNR College.

During the hearing of the case last month, the High Court bench had directed NMC to relocate those medicos to other medical colleges in Telangana within four weeks with the help of the State Government and the Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS). In fact, the Apex medical body had also sought an action taken report from the State.

While the reallocation process is yet to be initiated and the students are still waiting for being shifted to other colleges, recently TRR Institute and MIMS moved to the HC seeking a stay on the reallocation process as they argued that if the students are shifted at this stage when the classes began in January, they stand to lose, adds The New Indian Express.

On the other hand, the counsel for NMC Goranta Pujitha referred to the major deficiencies in the facilities of TRR, which were noted during a suprise inspection conducted by NMC. It was pointed out by NMC counsel that the inspection had revealed that there was a faculty deficiency of 74 per cent. Besides, there was a deficiency in the residents and bed occupancy, claimed the NMC lawyer and argued that this could not be condoned for the quality of medical education would get hampered.

The daily adds that it was further argued on behalf of NMC that while the orders of cancellation had been issued on August 5, 2022, the TRR Institute waited until the last minute for approaching the court in order to delay the reallocation of students.

Further, the NMC counsel also informed the court about similar pleas raised by TRR previously and how they had been dismissed by the HC.

Meanwhile, the counsel for MIMS contended that the Commission lacked the power for cancelling permission that had already been granted. He also argued that shifting the students at this stage would not be advisable especially since the classes started in January.

Responding to this, the NMC counsel argued in the similar manner and referred to the deficiencies noticed in the MIMS. Finally, while considering the plea, the HC bench refused to stay the reallocation process.

Also Read: NMC yet to approve reallocation plans of Telangana medicos