President Ram Nath Kovind signed an ordinance on Wednesday to set up a committee to run the Medical Council of India (MCI) until a bill, which seeks to replace the body with a new commission, is passed by the Parliament. A bill to replace MCI with the National Medical Commission is still pending in Parliament.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley made the announcement after the ordinance was cleared by the Union Cabinet on Wednesday morning. Official sources said the ordinance supersedes the MCI and the powers of the council have been vested in a Board of Governors (BoG).
The BoG will continue to perform until a Council is constituted. A similar Board of Governors was also appointed in 2010. The Board of Governors includes Niti Aayog member VK Paul, AIIMS Delhi director Randeep Guleria, PGIMER Chandigarh director Jagat Ram, NIMHANS Bangalore director BN Gangadhar and Nikhil Tandon, professor, Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism at AIIMS.
According to sources, all members of the board are eminently qualified and ‘apolitical’.
“All BoG members are eminently qualified and apolitical. It is expected that the BoG will bring about urgent and the much required reforms in the field of medical education and promote access to quality healthcare for all people of India,” ministry of health and family welfare said in a statement.
The National Medical Commission Bill pending in Parliament provides for simplification of procedures and is expected to spur rapid growth in the number of under-graduate and post-graduate seats in the country besides enhancing the governance and quality of medical education,
Amid allegations of corruption against MCI office bearers and probes into opaque accreditation to medical colleges, the Supreme Court had in May 2016 directed the government to set up an oversight committee with the authority to oversee all statutory functions of MCI till the new legislation comes in.
Many of the MCI members have been accused of taking bribes to fast-track accreditation.
In 2017, another oversight committee was set up with the approval of the top court after the expiry of the one-year term of the first panel, official sources pointed out.
The second committee was chaired by Dr VK Paul and included eminent doctors including those from AIIMS (Delhi), PGI Chandigarh and NIMHANS. In July this year, the committee resigned citing instances of “non-compliance of their instructions by the MCI”. The committee claimed that the MCI had also challenged its authority.
Sources said that in a scenario where the SC-appointed panel was not able to function and the bill to replace MCI was awaiting parliamentary nod, certain “immediate steps” were needed.