PATNA: The Patna high
court has asked Patna Medical College (PMC) and Darbhanga Medical College (DMC) besides the Medical Council of India (MCI) to file counter affidavit within four weeks' time on the progress made for recognition of seven PG diploma medical courses.
Eight PG diploma courses for specialization in medical science in PMC and DMC had been running since 1965 without MCI recognition. But MCI recently granted recognition to DGO and only central government's notification is waited in this regard.
Hearing the case on Thursday, Justice Chakradhari Sharan Singh ordered the PMC, DMC and MCI authorities to file counter affidavit on the progress made so far for recognition of the rest seven courses, which are PG diploma in Laryngo-Octology (DLO), PG diploma in ophthalmology (DO) and diploma in tuberculosis and chest diseases (DTCD) at PMC and diploma in anaesthesia (DA), diploma in child health (DCH), diploma in obstetrics and gynaecology (DGO), diploma in clinical pathology (DCP) and DO at DMC.
The court was hearing the matter for the 45th time since the writ petition was filed by Dr Madhukar and others on March 4, 2013. Justice Singh hoped the courses would get recognized soon if the authorities concerned continued to pursue the matter with the same speed.
The bench had barred the two government medical colleges from taking admission in the eight courses in 2014 until they get MCI recognition.
Principals of both the colleges submitted counter affidavits saying the PMC had sent its compliance report on all three courses to MCI after its inspection while DMC had sent compliance report for courses of DCP and DCH. The court was also informed that MCI had assessed the report sent by DMC for DA and DO courses.
Advocate Jagjit Roshan represented the petitioners while Kumar Brijnandan appeared for the MCI. The state government was represented by advocate Partha Sarthi.
Later, Roshan told TOI that the petitioners were not deemed eligible by state government for recruitment as specialist doctors due to the derecognized courses which were being run by the state government itself at its medical colleges. "Once the courses get recognized, it will be with retrospective effect since 1965. Several students who want to study super-speciality medical courses can also pursue it anywhere else," he said.
He also said PMC is among the only three medical colleges across the country which has 12 seats in DTCD while rest 47 medical colleges have only one or two seats permitted by the MCI.
