Uttarakhand HC quashes Govt Order reducing tenure of Medical Council

Dehradun: The Uttarakhand High Court bench recently quashed the Government Order reducing the tenure of the State Medical Council from five years to three years.

However, the order of the Government was challenged by Council's elected member and also the State Secretary of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), Uttarakhand, Dr. Ajay Khanna.

He was elected as a Member of the Uttarakhand Medical Council on 14.02.2019, which was notified by the State Government on 20.01.2020. As per Section 4 of the Uttarakhand Medical Council Act, 2002, the term of an elected Member is for five years.

Meanwhile, even before the 5 years tenure was completed, the Council was dissolved after the State Government's order on March 12 and applications were invited for constitution of new Council. It was argued by the counsel for the petitioner that the term of the Council cannot be curtailed and it was bad in the eyes of law.

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It was argued by the petitioner that even though the Council may be dissolved under Section 29 of the Act by the Appellate Authority, there should be reasons for that. "The question is, as to whether those circumstances existed?" argued the petitioner's counsel.

After considering the matter, the Court ordered to stay the proceedings for the formation of the new Council. Now a single bench of Justice Ravindra Maithani of the High Court quashed the Government Order which earlier dissolved the council.

Commenting on the matter, Dr Khanna, who is also the chairman of the ethics committee at UMC, told the Times of India, “Although other UMC members declined to challenge the order, I made it clear that I would go for my honour. I had also told the officials placed high in the government to do what is in the Act, otherwise if I go to court, they will be embarrassed."

https://medicaldialogues.in/pdf_upload/uttarkhand-high-court-215930.pdf

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