MCI entitled to initiate proceeding against med practitioner | Business Standard News

MCI entitled to initiate proceeding against med practitioner | Business Standard News



The Madras High court bench here today ruled that not only State Medical Council but also Medical Council of India was also entitled to initiate proceedings under ethics regulations against medical practitioners. 

Justice K K Sasisdharan gave the ruling dismissing a petition by Dr S Sundarajan, a radiologist here, seeking to quash a Medical Council of India (MCI) direction to him to appear before the Ethics Committee in connection with a CBI report charging that he was only a "name lender" and never worked for Puducherry based Arupadai Veedu Medical College Hospital. 

The Judge pointed out that the CBI report proved that Sasidharan was only a "name lender". As many as 29 doctors including the petitioner were working elsewhere and they were mere name lenders for the college. 

The CBI forwarded the report to the MCI and then only the MCI had issued show cause notice asking as to why action should not be taken against him. 

Two show cause notices were issued to Sasidhran to appear before the Ethics Committee. But he failed to attend. It was clear that the petitioner was not prepared to face the ethics proceedings by the MCI, the Judge said. 

The CBI report revealed the sorry state of affairs in the medical education field. Medical practitioners who were practising elsewhere were stated to be signing in the attendance registers of various medical colleges across the state to make it appear they were actually working there, the Judge said. 

Their salaries were paid in cash and records were manipulated to make it appear that they were actually working there. Only during inspection, the medical practitioners were present. The medical colleges by hiring teachers in this manner and without giving practical and theoretical training to the medical students, were producing half-baked medical practitioners, the judge said. 

The ill equipped medical institutions were playing with the lives of the people. It was high time that the Central Government and MCI rise to the occasion and take appropriate action against all the institutions responsible for downgrading standards of medical education, the Judge said.