On a plea against a circular retrospectively requiring foreign medical graduates (FMGs) without clinical training to undergo Compulsory Rotating Internship Training (CRMI) for two years instead of a year, the stand of the Centre and the National Medical Committee (NMC) was sought by the Supreme Court on Monday, January 16, as stated in a report by LiveLaw. A bench comprising Justice BR Gavai and Vikram Nath addressed this matter and said that this plea will be heard along with a batch of petitions filed by foreign medical graduates from China, Ukraine, Philippines who are not able to complete their clinical training.
These FMGs were unable to complete their training owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Russia and Ukraine. Consequently, they wanted to join Indian medical education. The petitions filed by foreign medical graduates will be heard on January 25, stated a report by LiveLaw.
Advocate Shivam Singh informed the bench headed by Justice Gavai that these schemes framed by the National Medical Commission (NMC) allowed foreign graduates who were not able to see through their clinical training to secure provisional registration in India after completing an internship of two years. Considering the COVID-19 situation, this scheme was framed after an April 2022 ruling to cover such foreign medical students who had already received their provisional or permanent registration certificates. The effect of this circular was that the registration of such doctors, despite them having treated patients for several months, was cancelled and the certificates already issued by state medical councils were revoked.
Singh argued that the disqualification notice against the petitioners who already had permanent registration certificates should be put on hold and said, "The petitioners are not shying away from an opportunity to gain more experience. But they are in a situation where the court has directed the centre and the commission to devise a workable solution for the junior batch that has completed three semesters online, whereas the petitioners have had only one remote semester. That too, at a time when the pandemic was waging – between January and May 2020. After that, the petitioners have also qualified the Foreign Medical Graduates Examination and secured their provisional medical registration,” as reported by LiveLaw.
The bench advised the petitioners to hold off until the next hearing because it was disinclined to immediately grant any interim relief. Judge Gavai stated, "The petitioners can wait for nine days. If we deem fit, we will set aside the disqualification then.” On behalf of the bench, he pronounced, “Issue notice returnable on January 25. The petitioners have also been granted the liberty to serve the standing counsel for the first respondent and the central agency for the other respondent.”
The petitioners have argued that the July 28, 2022 notice was unlawful under Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution as well as the principles of equity and fair play and the doctrine of legitimate expectations. The circular's retrospective has also been questioned. Gopal Singh, the advocate-on-record, filed the petition. The petitioners were represented by advocates Shaswati Parhi and Shivam Singh.
Singh told LiveLaw, “The petition challenges the National Medical Commission’s powers to retrospectively impose conditions and even deregister doctors. In case the impugned circular is allowed to operate, then it introduces uncertainty in the lives of doctors who have already studied for several years. Additionally, it is a classic case of changing the rules of the game after the game has started."
In April 2022, the National Medical Commission was directed by a division bench headed by Justice Hemant Gupta to frame a scheme that will allow medical students of the 2015-2020 batch to complete their clinical training in medical colleges that have been identified by the commission. This was directed while hearing an appeal against a direction by the Madras High Court to allow students to be provisionally registered. While hearing similar petitions by foreign medical graduates of the 2016-2021 batch in December 2022, the Supreme Court urged the National Medical Commission and the Centre to look at the problem from a humanitarian angle and left it to them to find a solution, stated the report by LiveLaw.
