High Court Orders Karnataka Govt, State Nursing Council To Decide Pleas For Starting General Nursing & Midwifery Courses In 8 Weeks

The Karnataka High Court has directed the state government and the Karnataka State Nursing Council to consider and take final decision on the proposal forwarded by 25 nursing schools seeking to start fresh courses in General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM) for the academic year 2021-22.

A single judge bench of Justice P Krishna Bhat while allowing the petition filed by JPI Dass School of Nursing and others said,

"Writ petition is disposed of with a direction to respondents to consider the applications of petitioners which were filed in the year 2019 as if it is filed for the Academic Year 2021-22 and take a final decision on the same in the manner indicated hereinabove within an outer limit of eight weeks from today and communicate the decision to the petitioners immediately thereafter. Needless to say, the order shall contain sufficient reasons for taking the decision either to grant the approval or refuse the approval."

The schools had approached the court as their proposals forwarded in the year 2019 had remained pending and no decision was taken by the authorities.

The court was informed by the Karnataka State Nursing Council that immediately after the applications seeking approval were filed by the petitioners, a decision was taken by Indian Nursing Council to phase out GNM Course. On account of the above letter, an application made by the petitioner seeking approval with effect from the year 2019-20 for starting GNM Course remained in the cold storage.

However, subsequently, by another notification dated 26-11-2020 the earlier communication dated 19.09.2019 (Annexure-R4) was recalled.

Advocate Reuben Jacob, appearing for the petitioners submitted that insofar as recognition and approval to the School of Nursing is concerned, there is no need for the University to obtain no objection from the Indian Nursing Council. To support this he relied on a communication dated 14.12.2016 issued from the Office of the Principal Secretary to Government addressed to the Registrar, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences.

Following which the court ordered that the pending applications of the petitioners are required to be considered and processed by the respondents within a total period of eight weeks and communicate the decision to the petitioners immediately thereafter.

Case Title: J P I Dass School Of Nursing V State Of Karnataka

Case No: Writ Petition No.4980 Of 2022

Citation : 2022 Livelaw (Kar) 114

Date Of Order: 08th Day Of April, 2022

Appearance: Senior Advocate Receben Jacob, A/W Advocate Piyush Kumar Jain. D, For Petitioners; Advocate B.V. Krishna, Aga For R1; Advocate Sumana Baliga, For R2

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