On October 21, the Supreme Court gave notice in the National Medical Commission’s transfer petition regarding the arguments raised against the legality of its decision to set a fee of 50% for seats in private medical colleges and deemed universities at par with the fee for government medical colleges in the corresponding States and Union Territories. All comparable challenges that are proceeding before various High Courts are being sought to be transferred by the NMC to the Supreme Court or to any one High Court.
A bench made up of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hima Kohli issued the notice. On November 4, 2021, the Bench will hear the transfer petition, the main petition, and any related matters.
Justice Chandrachud had advised Advocate Gaurav Sharma, who was speaking on behalf of the NMC on the last hearing date, to file a transfer petition so that the Supreme Court might take on all of these cases, consolidate them, and send them to the Delhi High Court or another High Court for decision. As a result, NMC submitted the transfer petition, which contained notification.
A certain State’s Government Medical Colleges must charge the same tuition as 50% of the seats in Private Medical Colleges, according to the challenged office memorandum (OM) issued by the NMC on February 3, 2022. Additionally, it is planned that the benefits of such a pricing structure will first be made available to applicants who have secured government-sponsored seats, up to a maximum of 50% of the medical college or recognized university’s entire sanctioned capacity.
The petitioner’s senior attorney, Mr. Maninder Singh, had informed the court that three High Courts—the Kerala High Court, the Madhya Pradesh High Court, and the Madras High Court—had suspended the impugned OM. The Madras High Court actually deemed the challenged notification to be wrong in law and remanded it back to the regulator, he had noted. Mr. Singh informed the bench that the petitioners were forced to approach the Supreme Court in order to seek pan-India consequences because the High Courts had stopped the notification’s application in their respective States.
Background
The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated in its rulings that the method for determining fees will be subject to taking into account a number of factors, including the facilities offered by the college, the infrastructure, the age of the investment made, expansion plans, etc., according to the main petition filed by AHSI Association Of Health Sciences Institutes.
The rules outlined in the contested OM go beyond the authority granted to the NMC and are invalid in the sense of the law. According to the appeal, each state’s Fee Fixation Committee, which is led by a retired High Court judge, is the sole body with the jurisdiction to set the fees for medical colleges.
The petitioner argues that private, unaided colleges should be allowed to set the annual cost they would charge students. The Fee Committee will monitor this fixation to ensure that there is no profiteering and that the fee collected allows the private, unaided institutions to cover their costs and make a reasonable profit or surplus for future growth.
The decision of the NMC was contested on these grounds.
News Mania Desk
