The High Court of Karnataka has set a deadline of eight weeks for the State Government and other statutory authorities to take a decision on the applications submitted by 25 nursing institutes in 2019, seeking permission to start new course of Diploma in General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM).
Justice P. Krishna Bhat issued the direction while disposing of petitions filed by JPI Dass School of Nursing and 24 other institutes. The petitioners have sought a direction to the authorities to consider their applications that are pending before the high-powered committee.
The court noted that all the institutes had sought permission to start GNM course from the academic year 2019-20.
However, the authorities had not acted on these applications in view of communication issued by the Indian Nursing Council (INC) in September 2019 to all the States based on the decision of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to discontinue the diploma course and upgrade all such institutes to colleges of nursing. The INC had also asked the States not to approve new GNM schools of nursing from the year 2019-20.
Subsequently, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the INC in November 2020 withdrew the earlier decision to discontinue the GNM courses, and allowed continuation of GNM courses.
Even though the local inspection committee of the authorities concerned had inspected the institutes of the petitioners after the Ministry’s decision to continue GNM courses, no final decision on their applications were taken by the Government and other authorities till date, the court noticed.
As the applications filed in 2019 were still pending, the court directed the Government and other authorities to treat these applications for the grant of recognition for the year 2021-22 and take a final decision, either to grant approval or refuse approval, as per the law by assigning sufficient reasons.
