New Delhi: The government of India on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it cannot accommodate medical Indian students who were studying in Ukraine citing a lack of provisions under the law. The students had to return to India due to the war in Ukraine.
Till now, no permission has been given by the National Medical Commission (NMC) to transfer or accommodate any foreign medical students in any Indian medical institute/University, the government of India said in an affidavit to the top court.
The government filed its response in a batch of petitions filed by students, who are undergraduate medical students of first to fourth-year batches in their respective foreign medical colleges/universities, who are primarily seeking transfer to medical colleges in India in their respective semesters, PTI reported.
The report quoting the government affidavit said, “It is humbly submitted that in so far as such students are concerned, there are no such provisions either under the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 or the National Medical Commission Act, 2019 as well as the Regulations to accommodate or transfer medical students from any foreign medical institutes/colleges to Indian medical colleges”.
It, however, said that to aid and assist such returnee students who could not complete their MBBS courses in Ukraine, NMC in consultation with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has issued a Public Notice dated September 6, 2022, indicating that NMC would accept completion of their remaining courses in other countries (with the approval of parent university/Institution in Ukraine).
The government said that after such completion of their remaining courses, the certificate, of course, completion/degree is expected to be issued by the parent institutions in Ukraine.
It referred to the allegations of the students that even though public notice of September 6, conveys no objection to the academic mobility programme, which is a temporary relocation of the affected foreign students in different foreign countries globally, it is not clear as to whether Indian universities are also included in the realm of “Universities in different countries globally”.
The government said that these students have claimed that when they tried applying under the academic mobility programme at their respective Ukrainian Medical Universities, such universities refused to entertain their applications for academic mobility in their first semester of the academic year 2022-23.
“It is humbly submitted that the aforesaid affidavit (of the student) is completely frivolous and misleading. It is submitted that in so far as the aforesaid academic mobility program is concerned, the same was introduced only for those students, who were not able to continue their education due to war like situation in Ukraine”, the report quoted the GoI further saying.
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