HC stays NMC ban on Karnataka's Medical College over bribery allegations, restores 200 MBBS seats

Bengaluru: Granting relief to Belagavi-based Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College (JNMC), the Karnataka High Court has stayed the National Medical Commission's decision of not permitting students to the first-year MBBS course for the academic year 2025-2026.

Earlier, NMC had decided not to allot any seats to this medical college based on the bribery allegations. However, staying the Apex Medical Commission's order, the Karnataka High Court Division Bench comprising Justices S.R. Krishna Kumar and C.M. Poonacha has directed the inclusion of 200 MBBS seats of the institute for allotment through the ongoing counselling for admission to undergraduate medical courses.

However, the HC bench clarified that the permission granted to admit students for the academic year 2025-2026 would not come in the way of the criminal proceedings pending before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), in which, some of the officials of the medical college/KLE Society were named as accused persons.

KLE Academy of Higher Education and Research, a deemed-to-be-university, which runs Belagavi-based Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, filed the plea before the High Court bench and contended that the CBI's "source report and FIR" neither specifically named the JNMC or KLE nor have any allegation been levelled against them.

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While considering the matter, the HC bench in its August 29 order granted relief to the medical college and issued directions to the Medical Counselling Committee, New Delhi, to take steps to include 188 MBBS seats for allotment through its all-India counselling to JNMC. Further, Karnataka Examinations Authority has been directed to include 12 MBBS seats for allotment under the State quota seats, The Hindu has reported.

As per the Daily, the HC bench permitted the admission to the MBBS course by relying on the Supreme Court order in the case of NMC vs Shyamlal Chandrashekhar Medical College and SPNM Hospital Khagaria, Bihar. In that order, the Apex Court allowed admission for the academic year 2025-26 during the pendency of a criminal case registered by the CBI on the charge of bribery for securing enhancement of MBBS seats.

In its order, the Supreme Court had observed, "registration of a FIR per se is not a sufficient or valid ground to withhold the Letter of Permission for a college... if the NMC is otherwise satisfied that the college and hospital possess the requisite infrastructure, facilities and amenities, as per the prescribed norms, for imparting the professional education to the said number of 100 students..."

The HC bench observed that the Apex Medical Commission's refusal to grant permission to JNMC was also based on a FIR registered by the CBI after a West Bengal-based senior doctor, who is an assessor for NMC, was caught red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 10 lakh for the alleged enhancement of medical seats.

However, the Court opined that the medical college cannot be prevented from admitting students for the academic year 2025-26 as the records indicated that JNMC had already rectified the deficiencies identified by the NMC earlier.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that, taking serious cognisance of corruption and misconduct, the National Medical Commission (NMC) had blacklisted a senior doctor serving as an Assessor and imposed strict sanctions on a private medical college in Karnataka. The action was taken following the arrest of the Assessor by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly accepting a Rs 10 lakh bribe in exchange for a positive inspection report.