Trouble at the Medical Council of India.

Last month, when India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Ketan Desai, the president of the Medical Council of India (MCI) and president-elect of the World Medical Association, for allegedly accepting a bribe of 20 million Indian rupees from the vice-president of a medical college and hospital in the Punjab state, few in the country’s medical community were surprised. Like the council he heads, Desai is no stranger to controversy. In a country grappling with a glaring gap between the demand and supply of doctors, starting a medical college can be a profi table business. Tales of desperate students who have been unable to get into heavily subsidised government medical colleges shelling out huge sums for seats in private medical colleges, are routinely reported in the Indian media. This supply defi cit invests MCI with a lot more clout than was originally intended. Set up under the Indian Medical Council Act, 1933, MCI exists to ensure uniform standards in medical education and grant recognition to medical degrees awarded in India and abroad. Medical colleges across the country require MCI’s permission to add new courses and to increase student intake. The charge against Desai and his associates is that they have been misusing these regulatory powers for personal gain. Back in February, 2000, a raid by the Income Tax Department on the business and residential premises of Desai yielded bank drafts worth 6 500 000 Indian rupees. The Delhi High Court ordered CBI to enquire further into the matter. But in 2005, CBI cleared him, citing lack of evidence. Now Desai is under scrutiny once again. According to a CBI press release dated April 23, the agency had received “reliable information” to the eff ect that Desai had entered into a “conspiracy with a middleman and offi cials of the Patiala medical college for granting permission to admit students to diff erent courses at the college from the academic year 2010–11, despite objections by an inspection committee”.