Acceptance of medical council president resignation revoked by Madras High Court

Chennai: The Madras high court has quashed the resolution passed by the executive committee of the Tamil Nadu Medical Council (TNMC), accepting the alleged resignation of Dr K. Senthil from the post of president of the TNMC.

Allowing a petition from Dr K. Senthil, Justice S. Vimala said, “From the records placed before the court, there is no proof to show that the executive committee meeting has been validly convened by following the rules. Hence, it is a case where the impugned resolution dated August 17, 2016, and the consequential communication, dated August 17, 2016, are liable to be quashed and they are quashed accordingly”.

According to Dr Senthil, he joined the TN Medical Services on November 21, 1993, as Assistant Surgeon. After working in various places, he was serving as professor in the department of diabetology at the Madurai Medical College, at the time of filing this petition. On February 15, 2016, he was elected as the President of the TNMC, which was the state body of the MCI, for 2 years.

He decided to withdraw the undated resignation letter given by him to an executive committee member for a reason and on 13th August 2016,  informed to department of health and family welfare, the registrar and vice president of TNMC and same was acknowledged.

However, without considering his representation, revoking his resignation and without following the rules, the TNMC passed a resolution accepting his resignation, he added.

Based on the evidence presented, it can be concluded that there was no meeting held on August 17, 2016, where a resolution was passed accepting the resignation and no mention of the letter seeking the withdrawal of the same. Hence the resolution adopted is not valid, the judge added

The judge said before the resignation was accepted, it was open to the petitioner to revoke the resignation.

Only after the acceptance of the resignation, it was not open to the petitioner to seek revocation.

The evidence available in this case would go to show that before the letter of resignation was placed for acceptance, letter of revocation has reached the hands of the concerned authorities.Therefore, when both the letters have not been considered together, the alleged acceptance, even assuming it to be true was not valid, the judge added.