Supreme Court seeks Nilekani’s assistance in MCI case

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has sought assistance from Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and non-executive chairman of tech giant Infosys and former head of the Aadhaar project, and IT companies to give technological solutions for disputes that arise during inspections of various private medical colleges by the Medical Council of India.

A bench of justices SA Bobde and LN Rao also gave liberty to Nilekani to seek technical assistance from various IT companies, such as Wipro, Infosys and Accenture.

Nilekani’s name was finalised at the instance of senior advocate Kapil Sibal who has been assisting the court in the matter. Every year the SC is flooded with litigation by private medical colleges against MCI’s refusal to grant them either recognition or refusal to admit students.

As a regulator of medical education the MCI inspects a new college every year for five years until it is accorded recognition. Once a college is recognised, an inspection is done after five years or surprise checks happen in case of a complaint.

“There are incessant disputes which reach this court about what actually transpired at inspections of various private medical colleges by the MCI. The parties contest virtually every fact that is recorded in an inspection,” the order said.

During the hearing on Wednesday Sibal said a computer network based technological solution such as artificial intelligence should be explored to resolve such disputes. MCI counsel Gaurav Sharma welcomed Sibal’s suggestion for a concrete solution to the problem.

As per the order, MCI shall convene a meeting with Nilekani and Sibal within a period of 15 days. Any lawyer who is associated with the matter can also attend the meeting to be chaired by Sibal.