No writs, Supreme Court tells medical colleges

The Supreme Court has warned medical colleges that once renewal of permission to admit students is refused they cannot seek a direction for renewal of recognition from the Medical Council of India by filing writ petitions.

Giving this ruling, a bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C. Pant said “it is well within the jurisdiction of MCI, which is a statutory body, to take a decision on renewal based on the inspection of the college to satisfy itself of the compliance of various provisions of the acts, rules and regulations.”

It said, “Under Article 32 of the Constitution (relating to enforcement of fundamental rights), this court is not supposed to go into finding of facts recorded by the authorities and to come to a different conclusion. Moreover, having regard to the law settled by a Constitution Bench of this court in a number of decisions, in our considered opinion the rights so claimed by the petitioners are not fundamental rights; hence the same cannot be agitated directly before this court under Article 32 of the Constitution.”

In two writ petitions, two medical colleges invoked the jurisdiction of the apex court under Article 32 of the Constitution, challenging the MCI’s refusal to recommend renewal of permission for admitting students for the academic year 2015-16 in the MBBS course of the petitioner institutes and the consequent refusal of the Union government to renew such permission.”

The bench said decisions are based on the inspection reports submitted by the teams of MCI. The jurisdiction of MCI or the Central government to grant or refuse to grant permission has not been challenged. Education has always been treated in this country as a religious and charitable activity and making it commercial is opposed to the ethos, tradition and sensibilities of this nation. A citizen of this country may have a right to establish an educational institution but no citizen, person or institution has a right, much less a fundamental right, to affiliation or recognition.”

Dismissing the petitions, the bench said the petitioners, even though they have a right to establish institutions for imparting medical and technical education, such right is not a fundamental right. It is equally well settled that this court, under Article 32, will not interfere with an administrative order where the constitutionality of the statute or the order made thereunder is not challenged on the ground of contravention of fundamental rights. The bench added that at the same time, if the validity of the provisions of statute is challenged on the ground other than the contravention of fundamental rights, this court will not entertain that challenge in a proceeding under Article 32 of the Constitution. However, this will not prevent the petitioners from agitating their grievances before the appropriate forum, including the high court having jurisdiction to deal with the matter.