The Madras High Court on Tuesday agreed to an urgent hearing of a batch of cases filed by some deemed universities and self financing medical colleges against the National Medical Commission’s (NMC) insistence that they must collect only the fees collected in government medical colleges from 50% of their students.
Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari accepted a request made by senior counsel Vijay Narayan, representing Education Promotion Society for India, a body of various educational institutions, to hear the matter on Wednesday since the fees determination committees in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry might notify the fees any time.
The first Division Bench comprising the Chief Justice and Justice N. Mala had heard the matter partly last week and decided to continue the hearing on Tuesday. However, the second judge in the Bench availed leave and hence the Chief Justice sat along with Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy on Tuesday.
Mr. Narayan told the Chief Justice he would require only half an hour to complete his arguments following which senior counsel P.S. Raman, representing Sri Ramachandra Institute of Higher Education and Research, and AR.L. Sundaresan, representing an institution from Puducherry, would argue the matter.
However, Additional Solicitor General (ASG) R. Sankaranarayanan told the court he was flying out of the State on Wednesday afternoon and hence the matter could be adjourned to August 23 or 24. Mr. Narayan expressed reservations over such a long adjournment citing the threat of the notification by fee determination committees.
Claiming that NMC was forcing the committees to fix the fees as per its February 3 office memorandum, which was under challenge before the court, he urged the court to restrain the committees from issuing the notifications. However, the ASG told the court that those committees were constituted by the State government.
After hearing both of them, the judges decided to hear the matter between 12 noon and 1:30 pm on Wednesday since the ASG would be available in the court till the forenoon session.
