A vacation bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices Indira Banerjee and MR Shah adjourned the hearing of Association of MD Physicians and others vs Union of India and Indian Foreign Medical Student (IMFS) Welfare MCI Gurukul Trust vs Union of India to June 15, owing to the paucity of time.
The petitions prayed for the induction of Foreign Medical Graduates in the healthcare workforce of the country to tackle the problems persisting in the healthcare system and has sought the directions to the Union of India to direct all states to immediately induct all the Foreign Medical Graduates and prove the graduates at par with that provided to MBBS graduates with commensurate experience from India who are part of the workforce.
Additionally, the petitions sought an alternative way introducing lenient qualifying criteria of FMGs who had taken the FMGE in December, 2020, the Medical Council of India Screening Test.
The petitioner in their submission sought the enforcement of their fundamental right to practice their profession, as also seeking to be placed at par with medical graduates eho have obtained their primary medical qualification in India in the light of the pandemic.
Earlier, a bench comprising Justice Nageshwar Rao and Justice Aniruddha Bose had on June 1st, 2021 issued notice returnable in two weeks on the petitions.
The Bench had, however, indicated that it was not keen to exempt FMGs from taking the exam. The observations were made in matter dealing with one-time exemption being sought by the petitioner associations for their members and other FMGs keeping the COVID-19 pandemic in mind.
