SC Strikes Down Kerala Ordinance on 2 Medical Colleges, 180 MBBS students to be hit

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has struck down a Kerala Ordinance that had nullified its 2017 order freezing illegal admissions to two medical colleges in the state. With this 180 MBBS students, whose admissions had been regularised by the state government with the special ordinance stands cancelled

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Indira Banerjee declared as 'ultra vires' and set aside the Kerala Professional Colleges (Regularisation of Admission in Medical Colleges) Ordinance 2017, against which the Medical Council of India (MCI) had approached the apex court last April.

The top court had on April 6 rapped the Kerala government for promulgating the ordinance nullifying its 2017 order freezing illegal admissions to two medical colleges in the state and had stayed its operation.

On March 22 last year, the apex court had cancelled the admission of 180 MBBS students in Kannur and Karuna medical colleges in Kerala due to irregularities in the admission procedure ( 30 in Karuna Medical college and 150 in Kannur Medical College). It was also found that admissions were made without publishing an approved prospectus on the college website. Though the colleges challenged the committee's order in High Court of Kerala, the court did not accept.

The Medical Council of India (MCI) had moved the apex court against regularisation of these admissions made in self-financing in Kannur and Karuna medical colleges in 2016-17.

Livelaw reports that the MCI contended that the Ordinance was a piece of colourable legislation attempting to override judicial orders. It is also contended that the Ordinance has resulted in compromising merit in admissions. 'Whether illegal admissions made by a medical college and the same having been invalidated by the Courts be legalized by promulgating an Ordinance,' the MCI asked in its petition.

After hearing the contentions made by the apex medical regulator, the Supreme Court held,

"Ordinance was an abuse of process to get over judgements of the High Court and Supreme Court, and this was an attempt to interfere with the powers and functions of the judiciary. The operation of the Ordinance was stayed by the Court while admitting the matter in April 2018."

"In our prima facie view, the ordinance in question blatantly seeks to nullify the binding effect of the order passed by this court. Prima facie, it was not open to declare this court's order as void or ineffective as was sought to be done by way of the ordinance."

"We place on record that we had scanned the documents regarding admission in the first round of litigation and the case was heard at length for several days. Hard copies were also placed before us, whereafter we rendered the decision after considering that admissions were not given to the students in accordance with the law and approved the decision of the regulatory committee," the bench had said.

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