SC orders CBI probe into MP ‘patients-on-hire’ scam
Medical College ‘Fooled’ MCI Team With Fake Patients
Dhananjay.Mahapatra @timesgroup.com
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ordered probe into a private medical college allegedly attempting to sail through an important patient-bed ratio requirement during inspection by Medical Council of India by filling its vacant beds in the attached hospital with hired patients.
A medical college under Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan University at Bhopal was permitted to admit students by the Madhya Pradesh high court even before MCI had inspected and approved its infrastructure and faculty sufficiency. SC had termed the admissions provisional and ordered MCI inspection. The MCI found the college deficient in infrastructure and faculty.
A bench of Justice S A Bobde and L Nageswwar Rao was informed by MCI counsel Vikas Singh that the occupancy in hospital shown during the inspection was contrived for the occasion and the patients were not genuine. Taking into account various deficiencies, the bench cancelled the admissions of students and ordered Madhya Pradesh government to accommodate them in “such colleges as possible as per their merits”. It asked the university to show cause why it should not be directed to compensate the students.
The bench took serious note of the allegation of MCI about hired patients even though the college through senior advovcate Nidesh Gupta vehemently refuted the allegations and produced medical records of the patients before the court.
The bench said: “We find we are not in a position to determine the truth or otherwise of the allegations. However, if the allegations of the MCI are correct, it is obvious that a serious offence as contemplated under Section 193 of Indian Penal Code (false evidence in judicial proceedings punishable with up to seven years imprisonment),” it said.
“In the circumstances of the case, we consider it appropriate to direct an inquiry to be conducted into the truthfulness of the statistics, reports and the material placed before this court along with the present petition by the petitioner-college,” the bench said.
It said: “Since the matter is technical in nature in the sense it involves knowledge of the functioning of a hospital; the nature of treatment that is given to patients suffering from particular diseases and whether there is the need for hospitalisation, we consider it appropriate in the interests of justice to direct that a committee shall be constituted headed by a senior officer deputed by the CBI director and two doctors of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).”
“The committee may visit the college and shall have access to all such information as may be required by it for determining the matters referred to it. The petitionercollege shall fully cooperate with the said committee. The MCI shall also provide any material relating to the inspection in question to the committee. The committee shall submit its report within a period of three months from the first inspection. The first inspection shall be made by the committee within one week of its constitution,” the SC ordered.
On the faculty front, the MCI told the SC that the college presented a document to show that five members of the faculty and a resident doctor were summoned on the MCI inspection day to a police station “in some case strangely where they were complainants in regard to a motor accident”.
Medical College ‘Fooled’ MCI Team With Fake Patients
Dhananjay.Mahapatra @timesgroup.com
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ordered probe into a private medical college allegedly attempting to sail through an important patient-bed ratio requirement during inspection by Medical Council of India by filling its vacant beds in the attached hospital with hired patients.
A medical college under Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan University at Bhopal was permitted to admit students by the Madhya Pradesh high court even before MCI had inspected and approved its infrastructure and faculty sufficiency. SC had termed the admissions provisional and ordered MCI inspection. The MCI found the college deficient in infrastructure and faculty.
A bench of Justice S A Bobde and L Nageswwar Rao was informed by MCI counsel Vikas Singh that the occupancy in hospital shown during the inspection was contrived for the occasion and the patients were not genuine. Taking into account various deficiencies, the bench cancelled the admissions of students and ordered Madhya Pradesh government to accommodate them in “such colleges as possible as per their merits”. It asked the university to show cause why it should not be directed to compensate the students.
The bench took serious note of the allegation of MCI about hired patients even though the college through senior advovcate Nidesh Gupta vehemently refuted the allegations and produced medical records of the patients before the court.
The bench said: “We find we are not in a position to determine the truth or otherwise of the allegations. However, if the allegations of the MCI are correct, it is obvious that a serious offence as contemplated under Section 193 of Indian Penal Code (false evidence in judicial proceedings punishable with up to seven years imprisonment),” it said.
“In the circumstances of the case, we consider it appropriate to direct an inquiry to be conducted into the truthfulness of the statistics, reports and the material placed before this court along with the present petition by the petitioner-college,” the bench said.
It said: “Since the matter is technical in nature in the sense it involves knowledge of the functioning of a hospital; the nature of treatment that is given to patients suffering from particular diseases and whether there is the need for hospitalisation, we consider it appropriate in the interests of justice to direct that a committee shall be constituted headed by a senior officer deputed by the CBI director and two doctors of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).”
“The committee may visit the college and shall have access to all such information as may be required by it for determining the matters referred to it. The petitionercollege shall fully cooperate with the said committee. The MCI shall also provide any material relating to the inspection in question to the committee. The committee shall submit its report within a period of three months from the first inspection. The first inspection shall be made by the committee within one week of its constitution,” the SC ordered.
On the faculty front, the MCI told the SC that the college presented a document to show that five members of the faculty and a resident doctor were summoned on the MCI inspection day to a police station “in some case strangely where they were complainants in regard to a motor accident”.
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