Central law on medical college approvals prevails over State permission requirements and policy-based refusal of essentiality certificates.

Parliament's scheme under Section 10A of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 was treated as a complete code for establishing new medical colleges, so the Tamil Nadu requirement of prior State Government permission under the State Act was repugnant and could not operate in that field. The State could not refuse an essentiality certificate on the basis of a general policy against private trusts starting medical colleges, because the certificate was only meant to assess desirability and feasibility at the proposed location. The Central Government was required to consider the application on its merits without treating State permission or an essentiality certificate as a veto.

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Issues: (i) Whether the proviso to Section 5(5) of the Tamil Nadu Medical University Act, 1987, requiring prior permission of the State Government for establishment of a medical college, was repugnant to Section 10A of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956. (ii) Whether the State Government could refuse an essentiality certificate on the basis of its policy against permitting private trusts to start medical colleges, and whether the Central Government could insist on such certificate for considering permission to establish the college.

Issue (i): Whether the proviso to Section 5(5) of the Tamil Nadu Medical University Act, 1987, requiring prior permission of the State Government for establishment of a medical college, was repugnant to Section 10A of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956.

Analysis: Section 10A introduced a complete code for the establishment of new medical colleges, with previous permission of the Central Government as the governing requirement and with factors, procedure, and expert scrutiny prescribed for that purpose. The State proviso, though placed in an affiliation provision, in substance imposed a condition on the establishment of a medical college and thus operated in the same field. Since Parliament had legislated later on the same subject and intended to cover the entire field, the State requirement could not survive to the extent it controlled establishment of a new medical college.

Conclusion: The State proviso was repugnant and inapplicable to the establishment of a new medical college; prior permission of the State Government could not be insisted upon.

Issue (ii): Whether the State Government could refuse an essentiality certificate on the basis of its policy against permitting private trusts to start medical colleges, and whether the Central Government could insist on such certificate for considering permission to establish the college.

Analysis: The essentiality certificate required under the regulatory scheme was only a certificate on desirability and feasibility at the proposed location, not a substituted power of the State to veto establishment on policy grounds. The refusal recorded by the State Government was founded on its general policy rather than on the relevant statutory considerations. As the college infrastructure had already been found adequate by the inspection reports, insisting on a fresh certificate would serve no useful purpose. The Central Government therefore had to decide the application on its own merits without treating the State certificate as an obstacle.

Conclusion: The State Government could not refuse the certificate on policy grounds, and the Central Government was not to insist on that condition for considering the application.

Final Conclusion: The appeals succeeded, the High Court's judgment was set aside, and the application for permission to establish the medical college had to be considered under the Central medical education regime without requiring prior State permission or an essentiality certificate from the State Government.

Ratio Decidendi: Where Parliament has enacted a complete and exhaustive scheme governing establishment of new medical colleges, any State law or State insistence that effectively adds a prior permission requirement for the same field yields to the Central law under Article 254 of the Constitution.

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