HC junks Maheshwara medical college plea challenging NMC PG seat restriction

Hyderabad: Holding that issues related to infrastructure, faculty strength and clinical material fall within the domain of expert statutory authorities, the Telangana High Court dismissed a plea filed by Maheshwara Medical College, which had challenged the decision of the National Medical Commission (NMC) and its Medical Assessment and Rating Board, MARB, restricting the increase of postgraduate seats for the academic year 2025-26.

Refusing to interfere with the plea, Single Bench Justice Nagesh Bheemapaka clarified that courts could only interfere in such technical determinations when there is clear mala fide, violation of natural justice, or jurisdictional error.

The bench observed,

"Matters relating to adequacy of infrastructure, faculty and clinical material fell within the domain of expert statutory bodies, and courts could not sit in appeal over such technical determinations unless there was mala fide, patent perversity, violation of natural justice or jurisdictional error."

In the plea, the college claimed that, based on its infrastructure, faculty strength, and compliance with the Postgraduate Medical Education Regulations (PGMER-2024), it was eligible for 58 PG seats. However, the college alleged that the NMC initially granted only 12 seats and later allowed only a partial increase, reports Deccan Chronicle.

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Challenging this, the college alleged that the decision was arbitrary and that they were eligible for the total PG seats approval. The college argued that the disapproval letters were not communicated, affecting its right to appeal. It claimed that certain deficiencies cited by the regulators, such as inflated data, low death rate, and IVP figures, were based on factual errors.

However, the High Court noted that a show-cause notice had been issued and that the college was allowed to respond. It further observed that the institution had already used its statutory remedies, including filing a first appeal before the NMC and a second appeal before the Central Government.

Finding no such grounds in the present case, the High Court held that the principles of natural justice were followed and that no prejudice was caused to the college. Accordingly, the writ petition was dismissed.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that back in January 2024, the PG Board of NMC had released the final Post-Graduate Minimum Standard Requirements 2023 (PGMSR-2023), laying down the conditions for the medical institutes across the country to be able to offer PG medical courses. NMC had mentioned back then that all the medical institutes starting PG medical courses would have to satisfy the conditions regarding the physical infrastructure, teaching staff, clinical material, and hospital as detailed in the MSR document.

Thereafter, in August 2024, NMC released PGMSR-2024, which included new MSR document i.e. PGMSR 2024 specifies the minimum requirements for the medical institutes imparting both undergraduate and postgraduate medical courses, requirements regarding faculty strength, bed occupancy, clinical material workload, ratio of eligible post-graduate faculty to students, number of minimum and maximum beds in a Unit, faculty, and senior resident requirements for the number of PG seats in different specialities, the list of functional departments mandatory in a specific medical college etc.

In January 2025, NMC clarified that the PGMSR 2024 document should be read as Revised PGMSR-2023 (modified as on 23.08.2024) in accordance with the provisions of the Post-Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2023 (PGMER-2023), to ensure clarity and prevent any misinterpretation

Also read- NMC Issues Clarification on Minimum Standard Requirements for PG Medical Courses