The Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday issued an interim order to the Tribhuvan University (TU), asking it not to implement its decision of scrapping the affiliation of National Medical College (NMC). 

The TU had scrapped its NMC’s affiliation on September 6 following widespread criticism that the medical college was allowed to run MBBS course despite failing to fulfil basic criteria and lacking faculties and staff. 

Responding to a writ filed by Jainuddin Ansari of the NMC on October 17, claiming that the decision to scrap the affiliation by TU “is illegal and the move has done injustice to the institution”, a single-bench of Justice Dambar Bahadur Shahi on October 24 issued the order, asking the TU not to implement its decision of scrapping. 

It must be noted that Dr Govinda KC, who has long been fighting against malpractices in the medical education sector and demanding sweeping reforms to ensure equitable health care to all at an affordable cost, had warned of launching another round of hunger strike to press for annulment of the affiliation to the controversial institution. A committee formed by the TU and the Ministry of Health in September had said that the NMC was being run illegally and that it lacked human resources and infrastructure to run MBBS course. 

The bench, however, has failed to take into consideration the recommendations made by the team of experts and the reason given by it to scrap the NMC’s affiliation. 

According to sources, the bench issued the interim order based on arguments presented by the lawyers on behalf of Ansari. 

The NMC controversy first surfaced on July 27 after the TU Executive Council granted affiliation to it based on an earlier Supreme Court ruling. The TU had claimed that the affiliation was given to the NMC to run MBBS course as per the order of a division bench of then chief justice Damodar Prasad Sharma and justice Om Prakash Mishra on September 16, 2014.

The bench had observed that there was no reason to deny affiliation “if the medical college meets the set criteria”. 

However, another SC decision on March 2, 2017 had stated that barring the affiliation was not a case of contempt of court, as claimed by the petitioner, since the government was working seriously to end the anomalies in the medical education sector. 

Following reports that the NMC was not well-equipped—human resource and infrastructure-wise—to run MBBS course, the TU on September 3 had decided to put the affiliation decision on hold and subsequently on September 6 scrapped the affiliation. 

The college is an extension of the Birgunj-based National Medical College, owned by Basruddin Ansari, a CPN-UML leader. The institution is not registered with the Ministry of Health.

The NMC’s effort to seek affiliation through a court decision is based on a 2014 inspection report which itself is dubious in nature. 

The report prepared by a team led by Dr Karbir Nath Yogi, a professor at the Institute of Medicine, is far from reality when it comes to number of doctors and staff at the controversial college, number of beds, flow of patients, infrastructure and services. 

Dr KC says ‘fight now against pawns of medical mafia’

Dr Govinda KC, an orthopaedic surgeon who has staged hunger strikes 13 times demanding sweeping reforms in the medical education sector, on Wednesday warned that he will now launch a fight against “the pawns of medical mafia”. 

He called off his 13th hunger strike after 14 days on October 18.