The Supreme Court has rapped the Medical Council of India and the Uttar Pradesh Directorate General of Medical Education for not being able to accommodate 32 aspiring doctors despite its orders to admit them in other colleges after the closure of their institution.

The students were admitted in Azamgarh Medical College after passing the pre-medical entrance test and subsequent counselling.

But a year later, the MCI ordered the closure of the college, after noticing some deficiency in its infrastructure.

Left in the lurch, the students approached the Supreme Court, which directed the MCI and the DGME to accommodate them in appropriate institutions.

The students later approached the court saying that the MCI and the DME had not honoured the court order.

Finding the complaint true, a bench comprising Justice S Rajendra Babu and Justice P Venkatarama Reddi said, "The authorities are squarely to be blamed in this matter in not having ascertained the position before allocating the students to different colleges."

The bench also observed, "We gave enough time to both the MCI and the Directorate General of Medical Education of UP to work out an appropriate solution in this regard. They have failed to do so."

The MCI and DGME on their part pleaded that they were helpless as no institution was ready to admit the students over and above the annual allotment of seats.

MCI stated that no medical college, in view of the mandatory provisions of Section 10-A of the Medical Council of India Act, was permitted to make even a single admission over and above its annual intake capacity.

The DGME stated that all the seats in the respective institutions were filled up and it was not possible to accommodate the students after a year of their admission to the Azamgarh Medical College.

After hearing the parties, the bench said, "Both the MCI and the DGME of UP have frustrated the orders of this court by depending upon various provisions of the Act and the difficulty in having filled up the available seats in the respective colleges."

"It is no doubt true that the MCI should stick to the norms fixed in its regulations and even one time increase cannot normally be granted. We find that when the students have already passed the first professional, to ask them to take the same examination once again will be highly inequitable," the bench observed.

It directed both MCI and DGME of UP to work out a solution in such a manner that all the students be accommodated in respect of whom directions have been given in these matters in respective colleges in second professional examinations.

The court has given them time till January 14 next year to comply with the directions.