New Delhi, Sept. 13: India’s apex body for regulating medical education and practice is in turmoil amid allegations that its disgraced former president Ketan Desai is still controlling key decisions through a cabal of doctors.

Two senior paediatricians who are members of the Medical Council of India (MCI) have claimed that Desai still controls decisions by the body’s executive committee (EC).

They claim the committee was elected in a questionable manner and has some members willing to do Desai’s bidding.

In independent documents, the paediatricians have alleged that the committee’s membership seems to have been decided at a dinner attended by Desai the night before the election on December 10 last year.

They have claimed a “printed list” was circulated at the party, carrying the names of those to be elected and those who would propose their names.

“We, the MCI members have the responsibility to serve as a watchdog on the so-called MCI executive (committee), the election of which was highly questionable,” Devendra Gupta, senior paediatric surgeon at AIIMS, New Delhi, wrote in an email circulated among all MCI members within days of the election.

“(The election) is a gross irregularity, making mockery of the election process.”

A Calcutta-based NGO called People for Better Treatment (PBT) has used the documents to file a petition in the Supreme Court seeking its intervention to coax the health ministry into acting against the MCI’s allegedly corrupt practices.

“This is the first time we have MCI insiders either raising questions about its functioning and even filing formal complaints to the health ministry,” said NRI doctor Kunal Saha, founder president of PBT.

Desai was MCI president in 2010 when he was arrested by the CBI for allegedly seeking a bribe in exchange for granting MCI recognition to a private medical college. The Centre had then disbanded the MCI, replacing it with a board of governors as a temporary arrangement until the MCI was reconstituted in December last year. Desai has been free on bail since late-2010.

A corrupt MCI would pose “a serious danger to public health and violate the fundamental right to life for all citizens”, the PBT has said in its petition filed this week.

“The earlier government was voted out of power because of perceptions of corruption; now we are hoping this new government will take action on this important issue,” Saha said.

The 11-member EC, led by MCI president Jayshreeben Mehta, is empowered to take key decisions relating to medical education and medical practice, but many such decisions need to be approved by the MCI’s 93-member general body.

Mehta was not available for comment. MCI vice-president Chingleput Varadapillai Bhirmanandam, a cardiologist who is also an EC member, said that even if such a list had been circulated, the election was held as scheduled.

“No one opposed these names; there was an election process,” he said.

Another MCI member, Balvir Tomar, a paediatric gastro-enterologist, has complained in a letter to Union health minister Harsh Vardhan about both the election of the EC and the decisions subsequently taken by its members.

Tomar’s letter also alleges that Desai chooses the inspectors who examine whether medical colleges have the required infrastructure either to introduce new courses or increase their undergraduate or postgraduate seats.

Tomar has claimed that by choosing the inspectors, Desai exercises control over which medical college gets approved and which does not.

Bhirmanandam has denied that Desai has any control over either the MCI’s decisions or the committee’s.

“Where is the compulsion for any of us in the EC or other committees to listen to him, an outsider? We’re all senior doctors and can take decisions on our own. Not one college has questioned our decision in court so far,” Bhirmanandam told The Telegraph.

“Each of us in the EC is a senior doctor and (we) have our own standing and experience. When we take decisions on the MCI, we do not need to listen to anyone but ourselves,” he added.

“Just because some of us know a past president doesn’t mean we’re taking wrong decisions.”

Tomar has said that several members of the MCI’s general body had, at a meeting on March 28 this year, opposed many decisions taken by the EC and the postgraduate committee.

But a few members who belong to Desai’s group shouted the opposition down, and MCI president Mehta hurriedly approved “illegal decisions” even though several general body members objected to them, Tomar says.

The minutes of the meeting do not reflect any dissent from members of the general body.