Mystery over former MCI chief's licence to practise
Rema Nagarajan
TNN
The status of the suspension of the medi cal licence of Dr Ketan Desai, former president of the Medical Council of India remains a mystery with the current dispensation in the council refusing to answer queries on the sub ject. IMA secretary general Dr K K Aggarwal claims he attended a meeting of the council's ethics committee in January 2014 when it was decided that the suspension should be revoked.
Dr Desai's medical licence was suspend ed in October 2010 by the MCI, which was then being run by a government-appointed board of governors that had taken over af ter the council was disbanded following the arrest of its president (Dr Desai) on corrup tion charges. All of the corruption cases fil ed against Dr Desai have been closed, bar ring one in Patiala House court in Delhi. Dr Aggarwal was an `invited member' to the MCI when it was reconstituted in November 2013 (though no provision exists in the Indian Medical Council Act for `invited members) and also a part of ethics committee meetings. While Dr Aggarwal said the suspension was revoked, he admitted he did not have the minutes of the ethics committee meeting in which this decision was taken.
There have been several meetings of the ethics committee since the reconstituted MCI took over in 2013 with Dr Jayshree Mehta as the president. However, the minutes of none of these meetings have been put up on the MCI website. MCI refuses to provide the minutes even to RTI applicants, though they are supposed to be in the public domain like the minutes of all other meetings.
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