Kerala HC to decide on NMC Restrictions on capping Attempts of MBBS prof exams

Ernakulam: The Kerala High Court has agreed listening to a plea challenging the National Medical Commission (NMC) rules restricting the number of attempts to clear the first Professional University MBBS Examination to four.

Filed by a group of MBBS students belonging to various colleges under the Kerala University of Health Sciences (KUHS), the plea questions the amendment to the Regulations on Graduate Medical Education, 1997 introduced by NMC on 04.11.2019.

While the amendment makes it mandatory for the students to clear the examination within four attempts, the petitioners referred to the previous guidelines issued by the erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI), now NMC. MCI rules demanded that the entire MBBS course gets completed within 10 years.

Allowing the plea, the HC bench comprising of Justice Devan Ramachandran has directed the authorities not to take any coercive action against the concerned students as long as the matter being considered by the court.

Noting that the matter was important and deserved to be admitted, the bench listed the matter on October 6, 2022 and observed, "I have heard Sri. M.R. Abhilash, learned Counsel for the petitioners and I am of the view that this writ petition deserves to be admitted. It is so ordered."

Further the bench noted, "...until whith time, status quo as regards the petitioners shall be maintained and no coercive action initiated against them without obtaining orders from this Court."

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The plea has been filed through Advocates M.R. Abhilash, Sreepriya A., and Vishal Ajayan V. and in the plea, the petitioners have argued that after clearing the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) during the academic year 2019-2020, they had secured admission to the various colleges under the KUHS. Accordingly, their classes commenced on 8th August, 2019 onwards.

As per the latest media report by Live Law, after the lockdown started because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the students continued attending their classes via virtual mode. However, the petitioners submitted that they faced several problems in that period as some of they were from places like Wayanad with network connectivity problems. Some of the students faced physical and mental health issues as well. Besides, the students were under immense stress because of the vast MBBS syllabus. On top of everything, online classes were also disrupted on frequent basis.

Meanwhile, KUHS announced conducting 1st year university examination for the 2019-2020 academic year students. The guidelines required that the candidates needed to obtain a minimum 50% marks separately for University theory examination in each subject. Besides, in order to be eligible for appearing at the final University test, it was necessary for the students to make sure that they do not score less than 40% in theory and practical separately assigned for internal assessment in a particular subject. As per the rules, those students, who pass the examination in three subjects during the first annual year are eligible for getting promoted to the second year.

Consequently, the Anatomy/ Physiology & Biochemistry exams had been conducted on March 15, 2021 and after the completion of the same, the students got the permission for joining the second year class for a period of four months. When the results were published on July 19, 2021, it was revealed that the petitioner students could not secure the minimum marks of 50% as required by the University. In fact, most of the students had failed in their subjects by 3 to 4 marks.