SC strikes down Kerala ordinance on medical college admissions

The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a Kerala Ordinance that had nullified its 2017 order freezing illegal admissions to two medical colleges in the state.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Indira Banerjee declared as 'ultra vires' and set aside the Kerala Professional Colleges (Regularisation of Admission in Medical Colleges) Ordinance 2017, against which the Medical Council of India (MCI) had approached the apex court last April.

The top court had on April 6 rapped the Kerala government for promulgating the ordinance nullifying its 2017 order freezing illegal admissions to two medical colleges in the state and had stayed its operation.

The MCI had moved the apex court against regularisation of these admissions made in self-financing in Kannur and Karuna medical colleges in 2016-17.

"In our prima facie view, the ordinance in question blatantly seeks to nullify the binding effect of the order passed by this court. Prima facie, it was not open to declare this court's order as void or ineffective as was sought to be done by way of the ordnance.

"We place on record that we had scanned the documents regarding admission in the first round of litigation and the case was heard at length for several days. Hard copies were also placed before us, whereafter we rendered the decision after considering that admissions were not given to the students in accordance with the law and approved the decision of the regulatory committee," the bench had said.

On March 22 last year, the apex court had cancelled the admission of 180 medical undergraduate students in Kannur and Karuna medical colleges in Kerala due to irregularities in the admission procedure.