Times of India: New Delhi: Wednesday, 23
September 2015.
The status of
the suspension of the medical licence of Dr Ketan Desai, former president of
the Medical Council of India, remains a mystery with the current dispensation
in the council refusing to answer queries on the subject. IMA secretary general
Dr K K Aggarwal claims he attended a meeting of the council's ethics committee
in January 2014 when it was decided that the suspension should be revoked.
Dr Desai's
medical licence was suspended in October 2010 by the MCI, which was then being
run by a government-appointed board of governors that had taken over after the
council was disbanded following the arrest of its president (Dr Desai) on
corruption charges. All of the corruption cases filed against Dr Desai have
been closed, barring one in Patiala House court in Delhi.
Dr Aggarwal
was an 'invited member' to the MCI when it was reconstituted in November 2013
(though no provision exists in the Indian Medical Council Act for 'invited
members) and also a part of ethics committee meetings. While Dr Aggarwal said
the suspension was revoked, he admitted he did not have the minutes of the
ethics committee meeting in which this decision was taken.
There have
been several meetings of the ethics committee since the reconstituted MCI took
over in 2013 with Dr Jayshree Mehta as the president. However the minutes of
none of these meetings have been put up on the MCI website. MCI refuses to
provide the minutes even to RTI applicants, though they are supposed to be in
the public domain like the minutes of all other meetings. The minutes of all
other committees, like the post-graduate committee and the executive committee
have been put up on the website. The ethics committee meetings section alone
has not been updated beyond October 2013.
According to
many council members, the very first ethics committee meeting of the newly
constituted MCI held in December 2013 revoked the suspension of Dr Desai.
"If they put up ethics committee meeting minutes, they have to start with
the first meeting. As they are wary of admitting in public that one of the
first things they did after taking over was to revoke the suspension of Dr
Desai, they are shying away from uploading the minutes of all subsequent
meetings," explained a council member.
Dr Aggarwal
argued that since Dr Desai was registered with the Gujarat Medical Council
(GMC), the MCI could only ask GMC to carry out its decision to suspend his
licence, and that the GMC had refused to do so. Since the GMC's decision was
never challenged, Dr Desai continued to have his medical licence, said Dr
Aggarwal. However, he was unable to explain why the MCI's ethics committee then
needed to revoke a suspension that he says never happened.
While Dr
Mehta has answered queries sent by the TOI on many issues such as permission to
carry out live surgeries or on eligibility certificates for foreign graduates,
she has maintained a studied silence on repeated queries on Dr Desai's
suspension or on why the minutes of the ethics committee meetings are being
made public.
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