Time Schedule for Medical Courses Mandatory and Binding on all, No Dilution is Permissible: Delhi HC

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court recently observed that the time schedule and its sanctity to medical courses has unequivocally been held to be mandatory and binding on all concerned and no dilution is permissible in this regard, without any justifiable reason.

"Undoubtedly, medical education requires facilities and infrastructure of the highest standard as also the adherence to the time schedule for imparting premier education to candidates, thereby ensuring that the community receives the best possible medical practitioners," further observed the HC bench comprising Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav.

These observations were made by the High Court bench while dismissing a plea by Sri Satya Sai University of Technology and Medical Sciences. The Institute challenged an order passed by the Union Government affirming the order of the Medical Assessment and Rating Board of the National Medical Commission (NMC). 

NMC Medical Assessment and Rating Board denied to grant permission to the medical college for establishment of the new college for the academic year 2023-2024 as it stated that no application of the new college along with the necessary documents was received on the NMC portal.

Approaching the High Court bench, the University submitted that the approach of the authorities was erroneous as they did not consider the fact that the filing of the application in hardcopy was well within time and once the application fee was accepted and the hardcopy was acknowledged, there was no reason for not considering the same. 

In any case, if the same was not acceptable, immediate communication could have been made by the authorities to the petitioner institute rejecting the hardcopy so that the petitioner could have taken appropriate recourse or could have filed a fresh application within a prescribed time frame.

On the other hand, the counsel for the respondent authorities argued that the petitioner varsity did not make any effort to submit the online application once its status was consistently shown to be "in-progress" could have been a deliberate move on the part of the petitioner. It was contended that the same could have been for the reason that the petitioner was aware that the documents were not complete or the infrastructure was not ready and therefore it wanted to avoid any immediate inspection.

While considering the matter, the Court observed that sufficient time was available for the petitioner to complete the process of online submission of application which has admittedly been not done and no explanation has been offered as to why such a recourse was not taken. Instead, hard copy was submitted which is held to be not acceptable.

"In any case, the reasons behind the inaction by the petitioner, need not to be gone into or digged out, at this stage, in the instant proceedings. The fact so remains that there was no right vested in the petitioner to submit offline applications and a hence, there was no corresponding obligation to consider the same," observed the High Court bench.

"It is thus seen that the present case is not a case of technical glitch, had it been so, the petitioner would have made appropriate complaint immediately on 06.08.2022 or soon thereafter. Nothing of that sort has been done," the bench further observed.

Clarifying that the schedule has been set by the Apex bodies, the High Court bench noted that

"The schedule that has been set by apex bodies in their fields, especially in professional course such as MBBS, has evidently been set in a manner so as to account for the time that is to be taken in undertaking the steps in those stages in a satisfactory manner. The stage of inspection, for a medical college, in particular, is perhaps the most important stage. Ascertaining that the applicant institution possesses the necessary facilities and infrastructure to impart medical education requires scrutinization of the most minute details. A surprise visit in an inspection, is also a necessary element of the same, in order to weed out the institutions that merely put on a display for the examiners."

"To allow the internal timeline for inspection to be tampered with, leading to a hasty inspection, would have the undesired consequence of affecting the kind of education the medical professionals of this country receive. This court cannot allow that to be a reality. This court has a duty to use its discretionary powers sparingly, in only the choicest of cases," the HC bench further noted as it dismissed the plea.

"The time schedule and its sanctity with respect to medical courses has unequivocally been held to be mandatory and binding on all concerned. No dilution thereto is permissible in the exercise of power under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, in the absence of any justifiable reason," the bench clarified.

To read the HC order, click on the link below:

https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/delhi-high-court-order-216567.pdf

Also Read: No MBBS Admissions after August 30 of Each Year Under Any Circumstances: NMC