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SC raps SLMC for delaying registration of MBBS holder from SAITM
View(s):The Supreme Court this week castigated the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) for unnecessarily delaying an MMBS degree holder from the South Asian Institute of Technology and Management Limited (SAITM) from obtaining provisional registration as a medical practitioner.
Justice Prasanna Jayawardena, PC, upheld a Court of Appeal (CA) decision, inter alia, to compel the SLMC to provisionally register Dhilmi Kasunda Malshani Suriyarachchi as a medical practitioner. He dismissed the SLMC’s appeal against the CA order and decreed the payment of Rs 100,000 in costs to Ms Suriyarachchi to whom he said grave prejudice had been caused. Justices Eva Wanasundera, PC, and H N J Perera agreed.
Ms Suriyarachchi obtained a MBBS degree from SAITM believing it had been recognised as a degree awarding institute under the Universities Act of 1978. She also believed she was entitled to provisional registration from the SLMC as a medical practitioner because she had the required qualifications–namely, being of good character and holding a MBBS degree awarded by a recognised degree awarding institute.
But the SLMC in 2016 refused Ms Suriyarachchi’s application for provisional registration saying a holder of an MBBS degree from SAITM wasn’t eligible. She then sought relief in the Court of Appeal (CA).
In January 2017, the CA through a writ of certiorari quashed the SLMC’s refusal to provisionally register the petitioner. It also issued a writ of mandamus compelling the SLMC to provisionally register the petitioner and a writ of prohibition preventing it from rejecting her application.
In March, the SLMC applied to the Supreme Court (SC) seeking special leave to appeal the CA order. In September, the SC granted SLMC special leave to appeal on sixteen questions of law. An application by the Government Medical Officers’ Association to intervene in proceedings was allowed. Arguments commenced in January 2018 and ended in May. Written submissions were also tendered.
While the appeal was pending, Parliament enacted the General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University (Special Provisions) Act No 17 of 2018 providing for the award of an MBBS degree from KDU to students who completed the MBBS study programme at SAITM. These steps, however, were taken long after Ms Suriyarachchi had filed her application in the CA and after the SLMC made its application to the SC.
The SC, therefore, determined the SLMC’s appeal based on the facts and circumstances which prevailed at the time the CA made its order and when the SLMC filed its application seeking special leave to appeal.
Recognition as a degree awarding institute is granted solely under the provisions of the Universities Act and Rules made thereunder, the SC said. And the sole persons with power or authority over an institution which seeks or has been recognised as a degree awarding institute are the Higher Education Minister and the ‘specified authority’.
There is nothing unusual, therefore, in the Higher Education Minister’s orders stipulating the recognition of SAITM as a degree awarding institute subject to conditions which are to be fulfilled, the SC has held.
An institutional review report recommended that SAITM be recognised if thirteen recommendations were satisfied. It later determined that twelve of these were satisfactorily met.
The SLMC took no action to dispute the validity of recognition granted to SAITM as a degree awarding institute in 2011 and 2013 (when Ministerial orders were first issued), the SC said, questioning its bona fide. It can, therefore, be reasonably concluded that the SLMC saw no reason to doubt the validity of the orders at the time.
The SLMC had also not disputed the fact that SAITM has fulfilled all the conditions specified in the ministerial orders. A ten-member team sent by SLMC to inspect SAITM had dwelt primarily on alleged deficiencies in its clinical training programme, without considering other requirements.
The SLMC’s reports under the Medical Ordinance can have no bearing or impact on SAITM’s recognition as a degree awarding institute under the provisions of the Universities Act, the SC has ruled. They cannot be equated to or be regarded as being in the nature of “certificates of compliance” referred to in the rules made under and in terms of the provisions of the Universities Act.
The UGC had in 1999 published the “Guidelines and Application for Obtaining for [sic] Degree Awarding Status for State and Non-State Higher Educational Institutions/Institutes and for the Degrees to be awarded by Institutions/Institutes Granted Degree Awarding Status”.
It has been contended that SAITM cannot be regarded as a recognised degree awarding institute as it has, admittedly, not obtained a compliance certificate from the SLMC. However, the Universities Act does not contain any stipulation that an institution recognised as a degree awarding institute must obtain a compliance certificate from any person.
The SC held that the guidelines had no binding effect and SAITM was not mandatorily required to comply with them. The obtaining of compliance certification is also not made mandatory by these guidelines.
The SC also considered whether the CA had erred in compelling the SLMC to grant Ms Suriyarachchi provisional registration under the Medical Ordinance notwithstanding the fact that SAITM had no compliance certificate. There is no dispute the petitioner is of good character, the SC held. And when she applied to the SLMC for provisional registration, SAITM still held the status of a recognised degree awarding institute. Therefore, the MBBS degree granted to her by SAITM was awarded by a degree awarding institute.
There was “an imperative duty cast on the SLMC to provisionally register the petitioner because she is of good character and she holds a MBBS degree granted to her by a degree awarding institute”, the SC ruled.
The SLMC expressly claims it was acting under and in terms of the Medical Ordinance when it carried out the inspection of SAITM by a ten-member team. This carries with it an inherent recognition by the SLMC that SAITM was a recognised degree awarding institute under and in terms of the Universities Act. This is because the Medical Ordinance empowers SLMC to enter and investigate only recognised universities and institutions which are recognised degree awarding institutes, the SC states.