Delhi HC seeks Centre’s reply on plea against increasing limit of non-medical faculty for MBBS students

The petition sought the judicial intervention to strike down certain provisions of the Teachers Eligibility Qualifications in Medical Institutions Regulations, 2025, and an amendment notification of July 2, issued by the National Medical Commission (NMC).

“The impugned regulations allow individuals without an MBBS degree and clinical exposure to be appointed as faculty for undergraduate medical education, thereby diluting the standards of medical education and violating the statutory mandates of the National Medical Commission Act, 2019, as well as the Competency Based Medical Education (CBME) curriculum adopted by the NMC,” the petition claimed.

It claimed, earlier the appointment of non-medical teachers was restricted to a maximum of 15 per cent of the total faculty strength in Clinical Phase I departments (Anatomy, Physiology, Biochemistry, Microbiology and Pharmacology) and only in case of non-availability of medical faculty to maintain the quality.

The amendment notification of July 2, however, increased the limit to 30 per cent, giving legitimacy to a parallel, non-clinical cadre of teachers without clinical background or patient care training, in contrary to the legitimate expectation of complete phase out of non-medical faculty, it claimed.

The court posted the matter for September.