Supreme Court sets up panel to oversee MCI Functioning

The Supreme Court set-up a three member committee headed by Lodha to oversee the MCI functioning including its statutory functions and examine all the policy decisions of MCI.

This has been done to curb the blatant corruption in MCI that has lead to status renewal of sub standard medical colleges and brought down the level of medical education in India as a whole.

The three member committee appointed by SC comprises of former chief justice of India R. M. Lodha, Vinod Rai (former comptroller and auditor general) and Dr. Shiv Sarin (Director of Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences). They will oversee functioning of MCI till any other appropriate mechanism is put by the central government after due consideration of the Expert Committee Report.

Earlier in April Supreme court also allowed NEET to be conducted in 2016 to curb corruption in medical education.

SC Directed the central government to take appropriate action in this matter at the earliest. The bench said that the Committee will function for one year initially, unless the earlier mechanism is replaced by some suitable mechanism. The set committee will keep a check on the functioning of the MCI as its statutory functioning was sustained on May 15, 2009, when Madhya Pradesh’s High Court decision upheld 2007 state law for providing common entrance test and fixing of fee in medical colleges for Medical Professional courses. Bench also pointed to the Concerned authorities for urgent need to review the mechanism and also hoped that this issue will receive attention. The bench noted sorry state of affairs of MCI. This was pointed out by Ranjit Roy Choudhary and team in their report on 25^th of September 2014. The court noted that MCI was short on fulfilling its compulsory responsibilities as observed by Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare.

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