Supreme Court takes up plea against NMC fee diktat for pvt colleges today

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 22

The Supreme Court will take up on Friday a petition challenging the validity of the National Medical Commission’s (NMC) decision mandating the fee of 50 per cent seats in private medical colleges and deemed universities to be on a par with that charged by government medical colleges in that state and UT.

On par with that charged by govt colleges

The National Medical Commission’s decision mandated the fee of 50 per cent seats in private medical colleges and deemed universities should be on a par with that charged by government medical colleges in that state and UT

A Bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud -– which had issued notice to the NMC on September 5 and asked it to respond in two weeks to the petition filed by Association of Health Sciences Institutes (AHSI) -– agreed to take up the matter on September 23 after senior counsel Manindar Singh on Thursday mentioned it for urgent listing.

The petitioner has challenged the validity of the National Medical Commission’s decision mandating the fee of 50 per cent seats in private medical colleges and deemed universities to be on a par with that charged by government medical colleges in that state and UT.

The AHSI has questioned the NMC office memorandum dated February 3 which mandates that 50 per cent of the seats in private medical colleges “should be at par with the fee in the government medical colleges of a particular state.

The benefit of such a fee structure would be first made available to those candidates who have availed government quota seats but limited to the extent of 50 per cent of total sanctioned strength of the respective medical college/deemed university, the office memorandum further stipulated.

Earlier, the Kerala High Court ruled that NMC’s decision that fees in 50 per cent of seats in private medical colleges and deemed universities should be at par with the fees in government medical colleges will not apply to Kerala.

The top court has — in several verdicts — repeatedly said that the method for fixation of fee will be subject to considering various guidelines such as facilities available in the college, infrastructure, age of investment made, plans for expansion, the petitioner pointed out.

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