Chennai: The Madras High Court Monday stayed a single judge’s order barring the MCI and the Centre from issuing eligibility certificate to students who secure less than 80 per cent marks in the qualifying examination to pursue medical courses in foreign countries.
A division bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice N Seshasayee, hearing an appeal by the Board of Governors in supression of Medical Council of India, granted the interim stay and posted the matter to 17 December for next hearing.
The bench also issued notices to the Centre, the Tamilnadu Medical Council and the state government. The appeal challenged the 28 September order of Justice N Kirubakaran, contending that the single judge had increased the minimum qualification marks from 50 per cent to 80 per cent without any challenge to the stipulation.
The judge had erroneously re-legislated the provisions of regulation on graduate medical education 1997, it submitted. Justice Kirubakaran had passed the order on a petition by foreign medical degree-holder Thamarai Selvan seeking a direction to the MCI to issue a certificate of provisional registration to enable him to take up the compulsory rotatory residential internship (CRRI) in the state.
He had pointed out that in the past 10 years, only 15-25 per cent of doctors with foreign degrees managed to clear the mandatory screening test, the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination, conducted by the National Board of Examination, to practise the profession in India and hence, directed increasing the minimum qualification marks.