It is time to pull the curtains down on persons who are practicing medicine without qualification and hoodwinking poor people in rural areas, said the High Court of Karnataka.
The court made these observations while noticing that a 57-year-old person was practicing medicine, including allopathy, for years in Kolar district even though he possessed only a diploma in paramedical course.
Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while dismissing a petition filed by Annaiah N. of Oorgaumpet of Bangarpet taluk in Kolar district. The petitioner, who was running a clinic named Sangeetha Clinic, had questioned the rejection of his application for registration of his clinic under the provisions of the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments Act, 2007.
Upholding the decision of the district registration committee set up under the 2007 Act, the court said, “It is unmistakably clear that the qualification possessed by the petitioner does not make him a ‘private medical practitioner’ as defined in Section 2(k) of the Act, 2007.” The petitioner possesses only a Diploma in Community Medical Services with Essential Drugs (CMS-ED), a paramedical course.
“He is not a doctor as defined under the Act… Without being so, he claims to have practiced for ages now at Kolar and would obviously be even prescribing medicine. His practice, as averred in the petition, is allopathy as well…,” the court noted while observing that “it is rather strange as how the petitioner addresses himself as a practicing doctor for all these years.”
The district authority had sealed his clinic for not possessing registration under the Act and he had allegedly opened the clinic by breaking open the seal and subsequently applied for registration during which the authorities found that he had no requisite qualification to be a medical practitioner and hence rejected his plea registration of his clinic.