Centre should open medical college in each district : Justice Kirubakaran

Chennai: Justice N. Kirubakaran who was passing interim orders on a writ petition filed by Thamarai Selvan, an MBBS student of St Christopher and Nevis, West Indies, raised an interesting query on why the centre should not go ahead and ask the states to set up medical colleges in every district . He raised the question, on the basis of the reality of students with low marks being able to join foreign universities, while those with more than 95% marks in class 12, enrolling in MBBS courses in Indian universities.

“It is not understandable as to how moneyed persons, who get comparatively low marks, are allowed to get admission in foreign medical colleges or universities with lesser marks and they are able to get medical degrees which are also permitted by the Medical Council of India (MCI) by recognizing degrees granted by those foreign institutions. Only meritorious students should be allowed to enter any medical college as the lives of the patients or citizens are with the prospective doctors. Further, our country needs more doctors and hence urgent measures have to be taken to establish more government medical colleges so that medical education is not commercialized,” he said.

Thamarai Selvan whose petition complaining of not having been granted provisional registration certificate by the Tamil Nadu Medical Council, the judge addressed, made him raise the above stated pertinent questions.

The Petitioner , Thamarai Selvan completed the course in 2011 and cleared the MCI’s screening test for Indian nationals with foreign medical qualifications in 2016.

The judge pointed at the fact that the foreign university of Health and Sciences had been recognized by the Medical Council of India, and the candidate in question had only 77% marks in class 12 Boards.

This made Justice N. Kirubakaran raise a set of questions, which included:

•the number of medical graduates from foreign medical colleges who had taken screening tests conducted in the past 10 years

•the number of students qualified to undergo compulsory rotating residential internship and to get enrolled as doctors in the past 10 years.

The court also questioned whether the Medical Council of India(MCI), is aware that students with less marks are being given admission in foreign medical institutions and getting medical degrees.

The court wondered, whether allowing such students to get medical degrees, was not going against public interest.

Justice N Kirubakaran adjourned the petition for hearing to April 10, reports TNIE.