HC stays MCI show cause notices to five doctors

The Madras High Court today stayed show cause notices issued by the Medical Council of India to five practising doctors for initiating disciplinary action after they were allegedly shown as faculty members of a Puducherry-based private medical college in 2010.
Justice S Nagamuthu stayed the May 17 notices, issued on the basis of a CBI recommendation for disciplinary action, till June 23 when the petitions by the doctors, including Erode-based orthopaedic consultant Dr Man Loganathan, challenging the MCI action, came up for hearing.
The MCI issued the showcause notices asking why they should not be removed from the Council's register for misconduct based on the recommendations of CBI which investigated complaints that doctors lent their names so that the college concerned could show them to the MCI's inspection team as full-time faculty members.

The doctors argued CBI had no power to issue recommendations for disciplinary proceedings, that too when no adjudication had been made by any court.
Also, while MCI regulations stipulated that decisions on any complaint against a doctor should be taken within six months, in this case action was initiated one and half years after the alleged incident and hence the whole case is barred by time limitation, they said.
The case related to the inspections conducted by the MCI in Sri Lakshmi Narayan Institute of Medical Sciences, Puducherry, for renewal of permission on January 28, 2010.
Though the petitioners were present at the time of the inspection, they were constrained to leave the job afterwards, their petition said. None of the allegations in the show-cause notice was true, they said, adding, they never committed any misconduct nor signed any bogus documents.