Charak Shapath row at Madurai Medical College: Dean reinstated after inquiry

Health and Family Welfare Minister Ma Subramanian on Wednesday informed the Assembly that the decision to reinstate the Dean was taken following Chief Minister M K Stalin's intervention. "The Chief Minister felt that the Dean's good work during the COVID-19 pandemic should be taken into account and also he has expressed regret over the incident," the Minister said.

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Further, it would be ensured that there would be no deviation in the practice of taking the Hippocratic oath in Tamil Nadu, he said.

Rathnavel was transferred and kept on the wait-list on Sunday after a controversy erupted over the first-year students taking the English translation of (Sanskrit) Maharishi Charak Shapath. The Dean had pleaded innocence.

Rathnavel, the Minister said, met him this morning and expressed regret over the "mistake." "He had said such incident would not happen again," the Minister said.

Earlier first-year students were made to take the modified oath during the induction ceremony minutes after receiving their white coats. While ministers Palanivel Thiaga Rajan and P Moorthy, who were on the dais, expressed shock, the Directorate of Medical Education called it a "needless deviation" from the protocol. The health minister ordered the transfer of the dean the following day.

"Though Maharshi Charak Shapath was translated to English from Sanskrit, it would be urged to take the oath in Sanskrit in future, in the next five or ten years. It would be the imposition of a language at a large scale," the minister said while seeking to remind us that only 24,000 were Sanskrit-speaking people in the country. The government ordered an inquiry by the director of medical education in the medical college. reports TOI.

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