- (1.) Leave granted. This appeal by special leave is directed against the judgment and order passed by the High Court of Kerala at Ernakulam in W.A. No. 671 of 2013 dated 27.05.2013. By the impugned judgment and order, the High Court has rejected the Writ Appeal filed by the Appellant.
(2.) The Appellant-trust is the owner of a hospital Sanctioning at Cherpulassery in Palakkad District, Kerala with occupancy of 500 beds and related facilities. The Appellant, desirous of establishing a new medical college, approached the State Government for grant of the essentiality certificate. The State Government had issued the essentiality certificate valid for making an application to the Central Government for academic years 2011-2012 and 2012-2013, vide Renewed Essentiality Certificate No. 38646/S3/2006/H&FWD, dated 13.09.2010. Thereafter, in order to comply with the requirements of Section 10A of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 (for short "the Act"), the Appellant had filed an application before the Kerala University of Health Sciences (for short, "KUHS") to obtain Affiliation Certificate before making an application before the Central Government, dated 06.05.2012. Besides other communication between KUHS and the Appellant, on 14.06.2012 KUHS required the Appellant to submit the No Objection Certificate (Essentiality Certificate) from the State Government for the year 2013-2014 and a certificate from the revenue officials stating that the proposed land area is a single plot. The Appellant furnished the essentiality certificate for the academic years 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 issued by the State Government, dated 16.08.2012 on the even date. However, for the reasons best known to KUHS, it did not issue the affiliation certificate well in time, i.e., before 31.08.2012. Therefore, the Appellant was constrained to submit the application under Section 10A(2)(a) of the Act to the Central Government without the affiliation certificate on 20.08.2012, which was referred to the Medical Council of India (for short "the Council")-Board of Governors for the purpose of its remarks and recommendations on 28.08.2012.
(3.) It is pertinent to mention here that after the deadline for application for the academic year 2013-2014, KUHS had issued the affiliation certificate which was sought for by the Appellant on 01.11.2012, whereafter the Appellant supplied the same to the Council for its consideration. However, the Council rejected the application for academic year 2013-2014 on the ground inter alia that the application filed by the Appellant though submitted in time is incomplete application in terms of the various statutory Regulations due to non submission of affiliation certificate on 08.10.2012.;