Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s recent announcement offering help to around 3,000 Malayali medical students evacuated from war-torn Ukraine came as a relief for them and their parents. But it is easier said than done.
Mr. Vijayan had said in the Assembly on Monday that the State would urge the National Medical Commission (NMC) to intervene in the issue. Sources told The Hindu that right now, there was no provision in the NMC Act, 2019, for continuing the courses of foreign medical graduates in India. But, Section 45 of the Act gives sweeping powers to the Union government and these students can be accommodated in medical colleges here after issuing an Ordinance.
The Section says that “Without prejudice to the foregoing provisions of this Act, the Commission and the Autonomous Boards shall, in exercise of their powers and discharge of their functions under this Act, be bound by such directions on questions of policy as the Central Government may give in writing to them from time to time: Provided that the Commission and the Autonomous Boards shall, as far as practicable, be given an opportunity to express their views before any direction is given under this sub-section.” The Centre’s decision whether a question is related to policy matters or not shall be final.
Validity
However, if such an Ordinance is promulgated, it may be legally challenged by those who could not get admissions in India even after scoring higher ranks in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) compared with the medical students from Ukraine.
According to the data provided by the National Testing Agency, 8,70,074 of the 15,44,275 students who appeared for the NEET in the country qualified for admissions to MBBS courses.
As per the NMC data, there are only 596 medical colleges in the country with a total of 88,120 MBBS seats. There are lakhs of students who are ranked better than those coming back from Ukraine. Any hurried move to take in the returnees would only lead to a legal tangle, the sources added.
