SC agrees with MCI surprise Inspections

New Delhi: The Supreme Court in the latest directive has given full leverage to the Medical Council of India to conduct a surprise inspection of colleges to check on Council’s norm compliance by medical colleges. The court also allowed the apex regulator's surprise checks after dismissing a Haldia Based college’s allegation of mala fide intent against the MCI.

It was after one such surprise checks that the Council advised the centre to disallow admissions to the Icare Institute of Medical Sciences and Research & Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy Hospital, Haldia as they failed to keep the teacher-student ratio compliance.

However, during the arguments the counsel for the college was extremely critical of such kind of inspection on the grounds that it does not follow any procedure and reveals the pre-determined mind of the assessors and, in any case, the object of the MCI, as is evident, was to prove its point and not to objectively perceive things so that the medical education in this country can achieve real stability.

The court however, observed that after the institutions declared compliance that the Council moved in for a surprise compliance check to see if what was being declared was fact as well.

As we see, in the instant case, the allegations have been made against the assessors who are experts in the field and we find no reason to attribute any kind of malice or mala fide to them. In the absence of any kind of material brought on record, the mere allegations that there was a surprise inspection, within a fortnight, would not make the inspection a tainted one....

..In the instant case, we have already held that surprise inspection in law is permissible and the said inspection is not tainted with mala fide, as alleged. Once we arrive at such irresistible conclusion, the order passed by the Central Government with the assistance of the Hearing Committee cannot be flawed.

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