SC junks plea seeking Centre, NMC to reconsider maximum retirement age of medical teachers
New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India recently dismissed a writ petition seeking a direction to the Union Government and the National Medical Commission (NMC) to reconsider the maximum retirement age of medical teachers and examine whether it should be increased from 70 to 75 years.
Filing the plea under Article 32 of the Constitution, an advocate had sought a fresh, objective and evidence-based reconsideration of the retirement age of medical teachers. She had relied on the continuing shortage of qualified teaching faculty, and the expansion of the medical education system in India as the grounds for the reconsideration.
The arguments were placed before a top court Bench of Justices P.S. Narasimha and Alok Aradhe. Questioning the petitioner about her decision to approach the Apex Court with an issue involving broader policy considerations, Justice Narasimha asked, "How are you, as an advocate, concerned about this? Are you appearing as a party-in-person?"
In response, the petitioner confirmed that she was appearing in person. Thereafter, the bench further questioned her about the basis for filing the plea.
"What is your concern? You are a practising lawyer. Are these cases to be taken up by you? At whose instance have you taken these up? Have you thought about it?" asked Justice Narasimha.
According to a Lawbeat report, the bench also warned her against converting newspaper reports or policy issues into PILs without considering their broader implications. "Filing cases before a court, as a lawyer, is a very big responsibility on your part. It is not a routine matter that you read something in the paper, convert that into a PIL and file," observed Justice Narasimha.
Noting that the issue of an increase in the retirement age of medical teachers involved a larger policy decision, Justice Narasimha noted, "If teachers have to be going beyond 65 to 70, and then 70 to 75, there is such a larger policy issue."
He also cautioned the petitioner against filing such a plea merely based on the material reported in the media and observed, "You should think about it before you do this next time. Being a lawyer is a great responsibility on your shoulders."
Highlighting the burden on the judiciary, the Court further asked the petitioner to consider whether such a litigation would actually assist to resolve the underlying issue. "Think about how much the courts are overloaded with work and whether it is going to help anybody or not. You should think twice," Justice Narasimha added.
Further, the judge told the petitioner that even if someone approached her with such an issue, she should first consider whether it was appropriate to file such a PIL.
"Even if somebody asks you, you must advise them that it cannot be appropriate. But in this case, you yourself have converted it into a PIL," advised Justice Narasimha, further adding, "You should know what you are doing and whether it is going to help the country or not. Be careful next time."
After the top court bench made these observations, the petitioner requested for the matter to be dismissed on merits. Accordingly, the Court dismissed the plea.
Details of the PIL:
Filing the plea, the petitioner prayed to the Court to issue directions to the Union Government, the National Medical Commission (NMC), the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) and the Post Graduate Medical Education Board (PGMEB) to undertake a fresh, objective, evidence-based and time-bound reconsideration of the maximum retirement age of medical teachers. The plea sought directions to authorities to consider increasing the retirement age from 70 to 75 years, or such other age as may be appropriate.
It was argued by the petitioner that the issue related to the shortage of qualified medical teachers and the expansion of medical education across India. Relying on the history of the retirement age, the petitioner pointed out how the erstwhile Medical Council of India, now NMC, had increased the age of retirement from 65 to 70 years in 2010, citing the shortage of medical teachers.
Further, the plea pointed out that in 2015, there was a proposal before MCI for further increasing the retirement age to 75 years. However, it was not implemented. The plea also highlighted that the Oversight Committee constituted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2016 under former Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha had also considered increasing the eligible age of faculty from 70 to 72 years to tackle the shortage of qualified teachers.
Besides, the petition pointed out how the number of medical colleges had increased substantially since 2010, along with the MBBS seats, postgraduate programmes and super-speciality training capacity. It referred to the faculty vacancies in various AIIMS and also claimed that even NMC had acknowledged the issue of faculty availability.
In the plea, concerns were raised regarding the 2025 regulatory framework that allowed, subject to conditions, certain specialists from non-teaching government hospitals or institutions to be appointed or redesignated to teaching posts. In this regard, the plea contended that the experienced medical teachers possess accumulated teaching, postgraduate supervision, examination and academic experience and according to the petitioner, this was distinct from clinical experience acquired in non-teaching hospitals.
Therefore, the petitioner urged the Court to issue directions for comprehensive data on sanctioned faculty strength, working strength, vacancies and projected faculty requirements. It also sought directions for consideration of an expert committee to assess the shortage of qualified medical teachers and the desirability of increasing the retirement age.
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