State appoints five nominated members to Maharashtra Medical Council

The MMC comprises nine elected members and nine government-appointed members. Elections were held in April, after a gap of 11 years

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government has appointed five nominated members to the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) nearly four months after elections to the medical regulatory body were concluded, following the intervention of the Supreme Court.

State appoints five nominated members to Maharashtra Medical Council

According to a notification issued by the state medical education department on August 14, the government-nominated members are Dr Ajay Govind Keni (Kolhapur), Dr Rahul Kulkarni (Thane), Dr Prashant Narayan Choudhari (Pune), Dr Rajiv Yerwadekar (Pune) and Dr Chandrashekhar Gillurkar (Nagpur).

Nine registered medical practitioners were elected to the council in elections held in April. However, the MMC is yet to become fully functional as four ex-officio positions remain vacant and are still to be filled by the state government. The council will conduct internal elections to appoint its office-bearers, including the president and secretary, only after all positions are filled, said an elected MMC member.

The MMC elections were mired in controversy after the Maharashtra government decided to scrap the electoral process and appoint members through nomination. To facilitate the move, the government had approved amendments to the Maharashtra Medical Council Act, 1965, through an ordinance. However, it was forced to withdraw the decision after the Supreme Court directed it to complete the electoral process. The elections were subsequently held in April, after a gap of 11 years.

Established under the Maharashtra Medical Council Act, 1965, the MMC is the statutory body responsible for regulating medical professionals in Maharashtra. Its functions include registering medical practitioners, including MBBS doctors and specialists, renewing registrations, recording additional qualifications, enforcing professional ethics, addressing grievances and overseeing standards of medical education and Continuing Professional Development.

The MMC comprises nine elected members and nine government-appointed members. The council was functioning under a state-appointed administrator from 2022 till the recent elections.