Mumbai: The Maharashtra State medical education department has allowed the resumption of 10 courses after eight months of derecognising all the 26 courses offered by the College of Physicians and Surgeons (CPS). The decision to restart the 10 courses was taken after the newly appointed CPS committee held a meeting with the medical education secretary. According to the gazette notification dated March 15, around 175- 180 public and private medical institutions which offered CPS courses across Maharashtra can resume fellowships in dermatology, midwifery and gynaecology, gynaecology, pathology, surgery, medicine, ophthalmology and diploma courses in gynaecology and obstetrics, pathology and bacteriology, and child health.
“These 10 courses are recognised by the central government. We are glad that the medical education department has allowed us to restart them in the state,” said Dr Ajay Devidasrao Sambre, the newly appointed president of CPS. Established in 1912, CPS is an examination body which derives the power to grant degrees under the Indian Medical Degrees Act, 1916. As reported by HT on October 28, the decision to derecognise CPS courses had led to a power tussle between Girish Mahajan and Hasan Mushrif, two senior cabinet ministers in the state. CPS’ courses were derecognised when Mahajan was the state medical education minister, while Mushrif is the current state medical education minister.
After the new committee took office, CPS approached medical education secretary Dinesh Waghmare and sought a meeting to present their side again. Dr Dilip Mhaisekar , director, Directorate of Medical Education and Research and a representative of the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) was also present at the meeting. “We were able to convince him about the flaws in the process which led to derecognition of CPS courses, and the norms that were wrongly laid on us. He agreed to start the central government-recognised courses,” said Dr Sambre. “We are following up with the state medical education department to start the admission process at the earliest. There is a backlog of 2022 admissions,” he added. Dr Sambre was also hopeful of other CPS courses restarting soon. “The secretary said he will give us a chance to explain about the other courses. We are positive they will restart soon,” he said.
CPS has already moved the Bombay high court (HC) challenging the derecognition of its courses. Dr Suhas Pingle, former MMC member has also approached the HC opposing the petition. In his plea filed through advocate Madhav Thorat, he said that he came to know that CPS trained students in small clinics before conferring degrees on them and urged that the institute be shut down or taken over by the state government “in the larger public interest” of maintaining standards of medical education. The court’s next hearing is scheduled in the first week of April.