MUMBAI: The National Medical Commission (NMC) has taken a U turn and withdrawn its August 18 order regarding the discontinuation of all courses running under the umbrella of the College of Physicians & Surgeons (CPS), Mumbai. The NMC while withdrawing its August 18 order said that in compliance with the Bombay high court order dated August 22, it was withdrawing its order about discontinuing the courses. The principal secretary of the state medical education department, Dinesh Waghmare, said he had not got the court order but would follow the NMC orders.
CPS president Ajay Sambare said, “This is a welcome decision by the NMC, honouring the HC order.” The NMC’s post-graduate medical education board (PGMEB) had written to the directors, principals, deans and heads of department of all the medical colleges and institutions under the NMC on discontinuation of all CPS courses. The letter said that PGMEB had served a show-cause notice on CPS for not following the regulatory provisions of the NMC. In its reply, CPS said that it considered itself an examination body like the National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences (NBEMS) with the authority to give medical qualification.
The Board said this was a misleading statement and observed that the NBEMS was a government organisation included in the Schedule of the NMC Act, 2019, whereas the CPS was a non-government organisation (examination body) and had no authority to permit or recognise any course of qualification run by any hospital or to conduct examinations or award degrees.
The letter added that as per Section 22 of the UGC Act, 1956, the right of conferring or granting degrees could be done by a university established or incorporated under a central act, a provincial act or a state act or an institution deemed to be a university under Section 3 or an institution specially empowered by an act of Parliament to confer or grant degrees. Thus, it said, the NMC had decided to discontinue all the courses running under the umbrella of CPS with immediate effect. Aujender Singh, director, PGMEB warned all the stakeholders, including medical institutions and hospitals running CPS courses and students who were in the process of taking admission to these, to take note of the decision.
Earlier, the NMC had sought a ban on CPS courses. The union health ministry on July 19 had written to the Maharashtra government’s medical education department, asking it to stop admissions. The NMC had informed the health ministry earlier this month that its Post-Graduate Medical Education Board had issued a show-cause notice to CPS for not following its regulatory provisions. The letter also said that the Maharashtra Medical Council had inspected 120 institutes/hospitals offering CPS courses and found that two hospitals were closed while 74 institutes refused inspection. The order to restart the courses was then given by Maharashtra medical education minister Hasan Mushriff.