- (1.) THIS petition seeks a direction for grant of permission to the petitioner for sion to 40 students to B.Sc Nursing Course 2007 in the College of Nursing of the petitioner -Society. Further direction sought is for quashing corrigendum dated 7.11.2007, Annexure P.11, granting permission to admit students to certain institutions, on the basis of grant of 'consent of affiliation' by Baba Farid University, subject to the condition that registration of the said institutions will be done after permission from the Indian Nursing Council (INC).
(2.) CASE of the petitioner is that it was registered as Society in the year 2002 and started imparting Nursing education for a Diploma course in G.N.M Nursing. It applied for issuance of 'No Objection Certificate' (NOC) for establishing/opening a Medical Education Institution for B.Sc Nursing Course on 24.12.2003. The said certificate was issued on 8.3.2006, Annexure P.1, subject to the condition that admissions will be made only after approval from respondentNo. 2 -INC and Baba Farid University respondentNo. 4. The petitioner applied for grant of recognition to respondentNo. 3 Punjab Nurses Registration Council (PNRC) which was granted on 21.9.2006. On 30.8.2006, inspection was carried out by respondentNo. 2 -INC and necessary approval was granted vide Annexure P.3. RespondentNo. 2 (INC) also issued Suitability/Recognition Certificate vide Annexure P.4 for intake of 40 seats. RespondentNo. 4 University after carrying out inspection vide letter dated 8.11.2006, Annexure P.5, informed the petitioner that there were certain deficiencies with regard to faculty, building maintenance, attached Hospital, Laboratories, hostel, teaching rooms and library. The petitioner -Society applied for second inspection, which was conducted on 23.7.2007. The Committee which conducted the inspection, again submitted adverse report dated 7.8.2007, Annexure P.6. The petitioner applied for third inspection and again deficiencies have been pointed out vide letter dated 8.11.2007, Annexure P.9. The deficiencies do not exist in fact. The inspection reports are biased and for extraneous considerations. As against this, vide corrigendum dated 7.11.2007, seven institutes have been allowed to make admissions, though they had not been subjected to any inspection and no affiliation has been granted in their favour. Merely 'consent for affiliation' has been given, without any inspection. No approval has been given by the INC.
(3.) IN the reply filed on behalf of respondent Nos. 1 and 3, (the State and the State Council), the stand taken is that approval of INC was not necessary for establishing the institute but was necessary only for registering the students for practice outside the State, which was clarified in para 5 of the affidavit of the INC itself dated 20.4.2007 filed in another writ petition, being CWPNo. 16436 of 2006, (Kular Medical Education and Research Society v. State of Punjab and Ors.), a copy of which was Annexure R1/1, to the effect that establishment of a Nursing Institution required approval of the State Government and the State Nursing Council and affiliation from a recognised Hospital. Role of Indian Nursing Council was to regulate Nursing profession and to set uniform standards and unless a Nursing Institution was approved by INC, persons obtaining degrees/diplomas were not entitled to register or practice 'outside the State'. As regards the corrigendum dated 7.11.2007, permission was granted to the institutes mentioned therein as per guidelines dated 6.5.1998, Annexure R1/3, which the petitioner did not fulfil and on account of that distinction, the petitioner was not allowed permission for admissions by the Punjab Nurses Registration Council for the Session 2007 -08. The institutions mentioned in the corrigendum were already conducting Three Year Diploma Course after getting affiliation from the University and after taking the permission from the INC and possessed the necessary land, building and other infrastructure and difference in infrastructure required for B.Sc degree being very little, the said institutions had been allowed to make admissions. RespondentNo. 3 Punjab Nurses Registration Council conducted inspection of the infrastructure of the petitioner on 16th and 17th September 2006 and found certain shortcomings. Earlier, affiliation granted on 21.9.2006 was for the academic session 2006 -07 for one year only but subsequently, deficiencies were found with regard to the faculty. Permission given to the petitioner by INC was also for the academic session 2006 -07. In the reply filed by respondentNo. 2 INC, it has been stated that the petitioner was granted permission and deficiencies found in the petitioner -Institution were not serious so as to make the petitioner unsuitable for B.Sc Nursing Course. As regards institutions mentioned in Annexure P.11, one institution Mata Sahib Kaur College of Nursing had been permitted, while Shiv Shakti College of Nursing, Sunam Road, Bhikhi, Bengal Institute of Health Sciences, Raikot and Rattan Professional Education Society, Sohana, Mohali were found not suitable. Mai Bhago College of Nursing, Tarn Taran and Baba Farid Educational and Medical Research Society, Faridkot had not applied for recognition. Kullar Medical Education and Research Society, Village Bija, District Ludhiana had applied for suitability for academic year 2008 -09. The INC intended to take up the matter with respondentNo. 1 -State for permitting admission of students. Any institution making admissions had to conform to the standards prescribed by INC.;