Court raise question on foreign medical graduates

Observing that it cannot allow public health to be at risk, the Madras High Court today suo motu impleaded the Medical Council of India and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as respondents in a petition.

A petition was filed by Thamarai Selvan, who sought a direction to Tamil Nadu Medical Council, to issue a certificate of provisional registration considering his application dated February 13 so as to enable him to undergo the Compulsory Rotatory Residential Internship (CRRI) in any approved Medical College-Hospital in Tamil Nadu.
Justice N Kirubakaran, in an interim order, asked him to re-submit the application to Tamil Nadu Medical Council within a period of two weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of the order and also directed the council to take appropriate decision within two weeks thereafter.

However, keeping the main petition pending, the judge, referred to the 77.8 per cent marks obtained by the petitioner in Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

The judge said the marks would not be sufficient to get a seat in any of the medical colleges in India as the cut-off marks was invariably above 90 per cent.

The judge raised a question as to how affluent students with comparatively low marks are allowed admission to foreign medical colleges and universities whose degrees are recognised by the MCI.

The judge said’ “It is not understandable as 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 is also permitted by the Medical Council of India (MCI) by recognising degrees granted by those foreign institutions. Only meritorious students should be allowed to enter any medical colleges as the life of the patient 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 commercialised,” he said

The judge then suo motu impleaded the Medical Council of India and Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare as respondents, and directed them to reply to a set of 14 questions including how many medical graduates from foreign medical colleges took screening tests conducted in the past 10 years.