Nod for medical degrees obtained from off-campus centres

April 25, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:49 am IST - MADURAI:

Students with medical degrees obtained through off-campus centres of a West Indies-based health sciences university before 2010 will be allowed to enrol provisionally as medical interns and doctors in Tamil Nadu.

The Tamil Nadu Medical Council (TNMC) has agreed to register provisionally students who had pursued medical courses of the International University of Health Sciences, based in the West Indies, at its off-campus study centres in Cochin, Pune, Mumbai and Dubai before April 2010 and allow them to take up Compulsory Rotatory Residential Internship (CRRI) in the State.

TNMC counsel Veera Kathiravan made the submission before Justice S. Vaidyanathan during the hearing of a writ petition filed by a candidate before the Madras High Court Bench here.

The judge recorded the submission and directed the TNMC to consider registering the candidate permanently also after she completes the CRRI and complies with other mandatory requirements.

According to Mr. Kathiravan, the Medical Council of India had initially refused to register such candidates by citing its Screening Test Regulations, 2002, which state that candidates who had pursued medical courses in institutions located abroad should have undergone the entire duration of the course directly in those institutions and not in their off-campus study centres located elsewhere.

The rejection was challenged by about 20 students before the High Court of Kerala in 2011. A single judge of the High Court allowed their writ petitions on October 1, 2012 and ordered that all of them should be registered since they had completed their course before the introduction of the regulation, relied upon by the MCI to deny registration, on April 16, 2010.

Further pointing out that the International University of Health Sciences was located in the Federation of St. Christopher and Nevis, the judge said the MCI had not produced any material to prove that under the regulations in force in that island nation, an accredited institution in its territory could not award degrees to students who had undergone studies in its off-campus centres.

The single judge’s order was confirmed by a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on August 29, 2014. Thereafter, the MCI decided against taking the matter on appeal to the Supreme Court and issued a circular on February 11, 2015 asking the medical councils in all the States to register such candidates besides permitting them to take up internship in hospitals within their jurisdiction.

“Accordingly, the application of the present petitioner is being processed by the Tamil Nadu Medical Council for grant of provisional affiliation,” the counsel added.

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