Ketan Desai

New Delhi, Oct. 8: Indian doctors have written to a global medical association to prevent Ketan Desai, the scam-tainted ex-chief of the Medical Council of India, from taking over as president of the World Medical Association in Canada next week.

Desai, arrested by the CBI earlier this year on allegations that he had sought a bribe from a private medical college, has been released on bail to visit the annual conference of the WMA, a global organisation representing physicians.

Desai had been designated president-elect of the WMA last year in New Delhi, at a time when he was president of the MCI — India’s apex medical education regulator. After his arrest, the government dissolved the MCI and appointed a six-member board of governors to oversee routine activities of the regulatory body.

The MCI under this board has now written to the WMA asking it to withhold the move to handover charge to Desai. “Desai has no authority in law to represent MCI or the doctors of India (at) the conference... Desai has fraudulently obtained the orders from the court of India to grant him permission to attend the conference,” the MCI wrote to the WMA yesterday.

WMA officials were not immediately available for comment. But a doctor in the US who had sent an email to the WMA protesting against its move to give charge to Desai said the WMA appears to have been either unaware of the developments in India or had been misinformed.

The MCI has now explained to the WMA the sequence of events following Desai’s arrest. “It would be a travesty of justice if Desai who has brought disgrace to the medical profession is (now) allowed to take charge as president of the WMA for which he got elected last year,” the MCI has written to the WMA.

The WMA describes itself as an organisation that was created to “ensure the independence of physicians and to work for the highest possible standards of ethical behaviour and care by physicians, at all times”.

The MCI in its letter to the WMA has added: “In all fairness, the current chairman of the board of governors of the MCI, an eminent academician and educationist, Professor S.K. Sarin, should take over this coveted position.”

The WMA website still shows Desai as president-elect. The change of guard is expected to take place at its annual conference to be held in Vancouver, Canada, between October 13 and 16.

“It would be a disgrace if Desai takes over this body,” said Kunal Saha, a non-resident Indian physician based in Ohio, US, who had written to the WMA chairman Edward Hill asking him to revoke Desai’s presidentship.

The WMA website states that the chairman of its council is the political head of the organisation, while its president, elected annually by the assembly, is the ceremonial head of the WMA.