Delhi High Court: While dealing with an appeal by the Medical Council of India (MCI), whereby the Order of the Single Judge that declared the Central Government’s decision to reject the applications filed by the petitioners for establishment of a medical college/increase of intake of candidates for the Academic Session 2015-2016 ,on the grounds that the Essentiality Certificate issued by the State Government and the Consent of Affiliation Certificate, issued by the concerned universities were not filed along with the applications, as erroneous, arbitrary and illegal, the Division Bench of G. Rohini, C.J. and R.S. Endlaw,J., emphasized on the sanctity of the time schedule which is required to be met by the applicants for establishment of medical institutions and conducting admissions
In the present case, three institutions filed writ petitions against the Central Government’s decision of rejecting their applications on the ground of incomplete form as per Section 10A of Indian Medical Council Act, 1956. The required documents were submitted after the cut off date. The Single Judge deviating from the settled position of law that mandates strict adherence to these deadlines, passed the Order in favor of the applicants and directed the Central Government to forward the applications of the petitioners to MCI and that the MCI shall consider the same and make its recommendations within a period of four weeks
The Court agreed with the contention of senior counsel Vikas Singh, that accepting documents after cut off date would offend Article 14 of the Constitution. The Court further observed that there is need for additional medical assistance in the country and that the infrastructure created and the investment made by the petitioners for training a significant number of doctors would remain unutilized for one year if their applications for the Academic Session 2015-16 are not considered, but the same cannot be a ground to issue directions at this stage to consider their applications at the fag end of the Schedule fixed for the Academic Year 2015-16, therefore the implementation of the directions issued by the learned Single Judge far behind the statutory time schedule is impracticable and does not serve any public purpose especially when the Academic Year of 2016-17 is about to commence soon. Medical Council of India v. Amma Chandravati Educational & Charitable Trust, 2015 SCC OnLine Del 9245 , decided on 05.05.2015
