MADURAI: The Madras High Court has declared nine unapproved courses offered by the Tamil Nadu Dr M.G.R. Medical University as illegal and imposed a cost of Rs 5 lakh on the university, payable to the School Education Department for infrastructure development in government schools.
Justice S S Sundar passed the order while allowing a petition filed by the Doctors Welfare Association of Tamil Nadu in 2018, seeking direction to declare the courses as illegal on charges that they were not approved by the Central government or Medical Council of India (MCI).
The judge observed that Section 10A and 11 of Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, read with Section 33 of the Act and the Post Graduate Medical Regulations, 2000, would show that unless a person gets permission from the Central Government for starting a medical course, no admission can be made in any medical course in the country.
Moreover, medical qualifications obtained so would not be recognised under the Act, he pointed out.
He noted that despite the judgments passed by the Court reiterating the above fact, in which the university had also been a party, the university, under the guise of a decision taken by a governing council comprising eminent members, had issued the impugned advertisement in utter disregard for the Court’s directions.
“Public will be misled to believe such unrecognised diploma holders as experts,” the judge stated and allowed the petition by imposing a cost of `5 lakh on the university to be paid to the Secretary of the School Education Department, with directions to the Secretary to utilise the amount to provide infrastructure or facilities to needy government schools in the State.