SC orders overhaul of medical education

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, May 2

The Supreme Court today directed the Centre to overhaul the medical education system within a year to improve the quality of doctors and health services and appoint within a fortnight a three-member committee headed by retired Chief Justice of India RM Lodha to oversee the functions of the Medical Council of India (MCI) till then.

“All policy decisions of the MCI will require the approval of the Oversight Committee. The committee will function till the Central Government puts in place any other appropriate mechanism after consideration of the expert committee report” which had found that the MCI had failed on all fronts, a five-member Constitution Bench headed by Justice Anil R Dave held.

The other members of the Committee would be Prof Shiv Sareen, Director, Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, Delhi, and former Comptroler and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai, said the Bench that included Justices AK Sikri, RK Agrawal, Adarsh Kumar Goel and R Banumathi in its 164-page judgment in a case pertaining to medical admissions in Madhya Pradesh. The apex court has issued the directive to the Centre by enlarging the scope of the case, invoking its extraordinary power under Article 142 of the Constitution.

The SC noted that the expert committee had also blamed successive governments for their failure to introduce necessary reforms in the medical education system.

The Bench noted that another committee headed by Ranjit Roy Chaudhury had also recommended that the MCI should be managed by persons selected through a transparent mechanism rather than by election or nomination.

The Centre ought to have power to disagree with the MCI and issue directives as it was the main stakeholder in shaping the health schemes. The admission process was not satisfactory as majority of seats in private medical colleges were being allotted for capitation fee. “The system keeps out most meritorious and underprivileged students. The unitary common entrance test will tackle the capitation fee and bring about transparency,” the Bench said quoting reports of various committees.

Quoting the expert committee, the SC said the MCI had failed to ensure that admissions were based on merit, produced competent doctors and put in place a robust quality assurance mechanism that had resulted in, among other things, an abysmal doctor-population ratio and a drastic fall in the quality of medical education.

"There is perhaps an urgent need to review the regulatory mechanism for other service-oriented professions also," the Bench said.