Medical Council of India dragging its feet in case against Indian Medical Association

NEW DELHI: The Medical Council of India (MCI) seems to be dragging its feet on key issues placed before the council. In a case against the Indian Medical Association (IMA) filed in 2008, though the ethics committee met in June this year and decided the issue, the minutes of the meeting are yet to be put up before the Board of Governors (BOG) for approval.

According to the complainant in the case against IMA, Dr K V Babu from Payyanur in Kerala he had been called to Delhi on his own expense to appear before the MCI's ethics committee which he had done. After recording his statement the ethics committee has considered the issue in its June 28 meeting and decided the issue, according to a reply given by the MCI to an RTI application filed by Dr Babu. Dr Babu can be informed of the decision only after the minutes of the ethics committee meeting is approved by the MCI's board of governors.

In the RTI reply given at the end of September the MCI stated that "the recommendation of the Ethics Committee will be placed before the Board of Governors for their approval which is still under consideration".

Additional secretary in MCI, Dr P Prasannaraj claimed that the matter had been placed before the BOG but since they had some objections regarding some other issue taken up in the same ethics committee meeting on June 28, the minutes had been returned to the ethics committee for further consideration.

This statement of Dr Prasannaraj is not borne out by BOG members who, when contacted said, on the condition of anonymity, that the June 28 minutes have not yet been placed before it till now. "We have no idea why the MCI is delaying it. It seems to be a deliberate effort on the part of MCI office bearers to stall the issue," they said.

The issue had started with the complaint of Dr Babu in 2008 against IMA endorsing products of Pepsi and Dabur. The MCI took action against IMA office bearers in 2010 by removing their name temporarily from the medical register and asking IMA to stop the endorsements. However, when IMA Kerala threatened Dr Babu with expulsion on the issue in February 2011, he approached the MCI seeking its intervention as he was being punished by IMA for upholding the MCI's code of ethics. In October 2012, the union health ministry asked MCI to take up the issue after MCI initially refused to intervene in the matter.

"When I was called to Delhi and the hearing happened this June, I thought my ordeal was over. But now over a small technicality of getting minutes approved the MCI is dragging the issue on," said Dr Babu speaking to the Times of India from Payyanur.