Supreme Court Seeks AG's Intervention After Bombay HC Cancels Recognition Of PG Courses Offered By College Of Physicians & Surgeons

The Supreme Court today(September 12) requested the intervention of the Attorney General for India, R Venkataramani, to arrive at a viable solution to secure the future of students after the Bombay High Court recently upheld the derecognition all postgraduate medical courses offered by the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Mumbai ("CPS").

Before a bench comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice KV Viswanathan, Senior Advocates Vikas Singh and Sanjay R Hegde submitted that the future of hundreds of students admitted into the courses offered by the CPS is currently at stake. He added have been left in limbo as they were awaiting the conduct of the examination.

On August 16, 2024, the Post Graduate Medical Education Board derecognised all courses offered by the CPS on the grounds of failure to comply with the regulatory mechanism under the National Medical Commission Act, 2019 ("NMC Act"). The show cause notice stated that the CPS, Mumbai, considers itself an examination-like body National Board of Examination in Medical Sciences with authority to give medical qualification. However, the National Board is a government organisation under the NMC Act, whereas CPS is a non-government organisation and has no authority to permit or recognise any course of qualification run by any hospital or to conduct examination or award degree.

Singh requested that the Court allow for the conduct of the examination, subject to the outcome of the decision. The original PIL petitioner, also a former President of the Maharashtra Medical Council, submitted that he had found that the courses offered by them were illegal as no proper permission was sought and his PIL was allowed by the High Court.

The Counsel for NMC pointed out that the course was discontinued in 2009, but again in 2017, it was started for a few colleges, but CPS committed a mischief and allowed government hospitals to conduct the course despite the NCM continuously denotifying it. AG Venkataramani submitted that he will explore the possibilities of regularising it to the extent that exams can be smoothly conducted.

"Today, the only question is whether students always enrolled, their fate has to be taken into consideration without going into the larger questions. We had a discussion, if we are going in that direction, give me about two to three weeks to find out the best modality so that we don't skip again... It's a question of holding exam in a proper way," AG said.

The Court ordered: "Due to a paucity of time, we are unable to start with the hearing of the matter. We are conscious that this litigant has something to do with the future of hundreds of students. Today, the only concern is about the examination to be conducted by the examining body, namely, the College of Physicians and Surgeon CPS House. We request the learned Attorney General to intervene and assist this Court in this litigation. Learned Attorney General would submit that he could speak to the authorities concerned and try to work out the modalities so as to protect the interests of students already admitted and awaiting conduct of examination. Learned Attorney General requested for three weeks time to come back with some arrangement by which the interest of the students can be protected. We have yet to hear the matter own its own merits, we are yet to look into the impugned judgments however, our first endevaour is to see that students are not left in the lurch between the fights. We requested learned Attorney General to work out something and come to us. By any chance, any viable solution is not brought into account, we will proceed to hear the entire matter on its own merits. "

Next date of hearing is October 8.

Case Details: COLLEGE OF PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON CPS HOUSE Vs SUHAS HARI PINGLE|SLP(C) No. 13079-13081/2025