MCI says it won’t be sharing any of its ethical committee meeting minutes publically
Medical Council of India (MCI) has announced that it will no longer be making public the minutes of any of its ethics committee meetings. These are the meetins where medical negligence cases and cases of professional misconduct by doctors are heard. No minutes from ethics committee metings have been uploaded to the MCI website since October 2013, after the current administration took over.
The MCI revealed its unwillingness to reveal these minutes after an RTI application was filed by the People for Better Treatment who sought a copy of ethics commitee meetings. The MCI replied saying –
The ethics committee has revised its working methodology. Decisions taken in each case will be would be in the respective file. As such no consolidate minutes of the meetings of the ethics committee are now maintained or prepared.
This is done as the ethics committee of the council considered the matter before it in a quasi-judicial capacity and adjudicates upon the appeal/complaint.
The committee has to decide upon the matter that affects the rights and duties of the contesting parties in accordance with the principles of natural justice and disclosing the proceedings prior to conclusion of a matter would serve no public interest.”
The ethics committe uploaded its minutes regularly between May 2011 to May 2013 on the MCI website. The minutes of every meeting were transparent till the current council took over in November 2013.
Information seekers had to approach the chief information commissioner to get the minutes of the meeting from the MCI versus simply sending their RTI applications and receiving the information. The MCI ethics committe minutes are public information and is available to RTI information seekers.
