Chennai: Making it clear that only meritorious students should be allowed to enter any medical colleges, Madras high court has posed 14 queries relating to medical education.
The authorities are expected to answer queries by April 10. Justice N.Kirubakaran gave the directive while passing orders on a petition from Thamarai Selvan, who obtained his medical degree from the International University of the Health Sciences, St.Christopher and Nevis, West Indies.
The judge pointed out that the petitioner had scored only 77.8 per cent aggregate in Physics, Chemistry and Biology in plus-2, which would not be sufficient to get seat in any medical colleges in India as the cut off marks for getting medical seats was invariably more than 90 per cent.
Pointing out that the court cannot take risk with regard to public health, the judge suo motu impleaded MCI and Union government and TN government as parties and posed 14 queries to them.
The queries include how many medical graduates from foreign medical colleges took screening test for the last 10 years, how many students have been qualified to undergo CRRI and get enrolled as doctors for the last 10 years, if the student with lesser marks were allowed to get degrees using money from foreign medical colleges and allowed to give treatment, will it not go against the public interest and whether any minimum marks to be obtained by students in +2 examination have been prescribed by the authorities to get an eligibility certificate by MCI to get admission in foreign medical colleges.
The petitioner had completed medical course from International University of the Health and Sciences, St.Christopher and Nevis, West Indies and obtained 'Foreign Medical Qualification" in 2011.
He applied for the "Screening Test for Indian nationals with Foreign Medical Qualifications" and passed the test, conducted by the National Board of Examinations in 2016.
Thereafter, he applied to the Medical Council of Tamil Nadu for issuance of Provisional Registration Certificate in February 2017 so as to undergo the Compulsory Rotatory Residential Internship. Since it has not been considered, he filed the present petition.
