Chennai: The Madras high court has vacated an interim injunction which restrained the Union and state governments from enforcing the penal provisions of Indian Medical Council Act and the Drugs and Cosmetics Act in the case of unqualified medical practitioners.
This would spell trouble for unqualified medical practitioners, who claimed themselves as doctors and successfully thwarted all attempts by police to check their illegal practice of modern medicine by quoting interim injunction passed in 2006. Vacating the interim order, Justice P.N. Prakash dismissed the petition filed by Private Medical Practitioners Association of India and four others.
The association had submitted that its members have rich experience in curing diseases and some of them also do have the requisite qualification in alternative system of medicine and therefore, the police cannot prosecute them.
“Persons claiming to have practical experience in modern scientific system of medicine ganged up to form an association and have filed this petition. When the petition came up for admission on April 6, 2006, a single judge of this court granted interim injunction as prayed for and thereafter, the case never saw the light of the day, until it was resurrected from the labyrinth of the record room, thanks to the orders of the Chief Justice and posted for disposal before this court as a ‘specially ordered mater” this year”.
In Tamil Nadu, medical degrees for Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Sidha and Homeopathy were given by TN Dr MGR Medical University. As long as these practitioners practice in the system of medicine they were qualified, there was no problem, the judge said.
When those qualified in a particular stream of medicine encroaches into a different domain and prescribes medicines not relating to their domain, state’s intervention becomes imperative, he said.
For instance, when an Ayurveda practitioner prescribes allopathic medicines, the question that arises was whether he has violated the provisions of the Indian Medical Council (IMC) Act, the judge said and dismissed the petitions.
