HC refuses nod to run medical college

HYDERABAD: Stressing the need to maintain standards in private medical col leges, the Hydera bad High Court has refused to di rect the central go vernment and the Medical Council of India (MCI) to renew permission to run a medical college, NRI Institute of Medical Sciences, atSangivalsa in Visakhapatnam.

Both the MCI and the Centre had earlier denied renewal of permission to the college on grounds that it lacked the required infrastructure.

The college had allegedly showed the names of six teachers of another medical college as its faculty at a time when the MCI team inspected the college on December 16 and 17, 2014. The authorities had refused permission to run this college for the academic years 20152016 and 20162017.

Though the management challenged the validity of the rules under which MCI initiated action against it and sought permission to run the college for the current academic year, the bench comprising acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathanand Justice U Durga Prasad Rao refused to accord any such relief at this interim stage. The college cannot make admissions into MBBS for this year also.

The counsel for the college urged the court to direct authorities to hold an inspection now and accord them permission to complete the admission process for this year.

Vivek Chandra Sekhar, the counsel for MCI, opposed any such relief to the college which had failed to avail many opportunities offered to explain its case. He furnished to court relevant documents that revealed the efforts of the MCI inspection team to ascertain the credentials of the teachers said to be working with the NRI Medical College.

When the inspection team tried to contact the teachers over phone, surprisingly all the calls went to the telephone operating system of a rival medical college, Anil Neerukonda medical college, where a computerized voice was asking the inspectors to dial the required extension number. The NRI College then tried to throw the blame on Hud Hud cyclone that destroyed telephone lines in Visakhapatnam. But the bench summoned the record from BSNL and found out that even this argument was incorrect because BSNL made it clear that though some telephone lines were destroyed by the cyclone, all of them were restored a month before this MCI inspection.

Vivek Chandra Sekhar told the court that the NRI College had furnished fake documents regarding the six teachers and has been trying to mislead the authorities in this regard. He urged the court not to order any inspection at this late stage.