High Court Rejects Plea Challenging Mandatory Registration Of Allopathy Practitioners With Delhi Medical Council

The Delhi High Court has dismissed a PIL challenging a notice issued by the Delhi Medical Council (DMC) directing any person practicing allopathy, the modern scientific system of medicine, in the national capital to be mandatorily registered with it, as per the Delhi Medical Council Act, 1997.

A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora said that the impugned notice issued by DMC on December 24 last year is intra vires and has no conflict with the provisions of the National Medical Commission Act, 2019 Act.

“The consequence of registration by medical practitioners under Section 15 (1) of the DMC Act is that the DMC will have jurisdiction to take disciplinary actions in case of any professional or ethical misconduct by a medical practitioner practicing in Delhi,” the court said.

It added that the intent of making the medical practitioner amenable to the regulatory jurisdiction of the Medical Council of State in which he kr she practices is in the public interest as it enables the concerned Council to hold the erring medical practitioners accountable for their wrongful conduct and take disciplinary against them, under law.

The bench rejected the plea moved by Dr. Namit Gupta who contended that the individuals who are already registered with other State Medical Councils will have to either surrender their registration and get themselves registered with DMC or they will have to get registered with the Medical Councils of two States which will lead to multiple State registrations.

While dismissing the plea, the court said that the impugned notice had been issued by DMC in the exercise of its jurisdiction under Section 15 of the DMC Act, which provides for the preparation and maintenance of a register of medical practitioners for Delhi under law.

The court observed that the Registration of Medical Practitioners and License to Practice Medicine Regulations, 2023, framed under the NMC Act expressly provide an option to the eligible person to seek registration in more than one State Medical Council.

It further rejected Gupta's contention that it would be inconvenient for the medical practitioner to seek transfer to a new State Medical Council in case of a transfer of job.

“Regulation 9 of the Regulations of 2023, provides for a convenient web portal-based procedure for seeking transfer of registration to another State Medical Council and also provides for mechanism of deemed approval. There is no basis for alleging that process of transfer and registration is inconvenient,” the court said.

Title: DR NAMIT GUPTA v. DELHI MEDICAL COUNCIL AND ANR

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Del) 223

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