Ethics Committee jurisdiction limited to registered practitioners; adverse remarks on hospital infrastructure were quashed.

The Ethics Regulations were treated as confined to action against registered medical practitioners, not to the hospital's infrastructure, facilities or post-operative care arrangements. Because the Ethics Committee itself accepted that its jurisdiction under the 2002 Regulations did not extend to the hospital as such, adverse observations on the hospital's infrastructure and functioning were held to be beyond jurisdiction. Those observations could not be sustained and were quashed.

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Issues: Whether the Medical Council of India had jurisdiction under the Ethics Regulations to make adverse observations regarding the infrastructure and facilities of the hospital.

Analysis: The petition challenged the impugned minutes on the ground that the Ethics Committee's authority under the Indian Medical Council framework extended only to registered medical practitioners and not to the infrastructure, facilities, or functioning of a hospital. The respondent also admitted that its jurisdiction under the 2002 Regulations was limited to action against registered medical professionals and that no order had been passed against the hospital as such. The adverse observations nevertheless reflected upon the hospital's infrastructure and post-operative care facilities, which were outside the Committee's jurisdiction.

Conclusion: The adverse observations against the hospital were without jurisdiction and could not be sustained. The writ petition was allowed and the impugned observations were quashed.

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