Medical commission withdraws MBBS nod to Jammu college amid row over admission to Muslims; cites ‘gross deficiencies’

The National Medical Commission (NMC) on Tuesday withdrew the Letter of Permission (LoP) granted to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence at Reasi in Jammu and Kashmir for running the MBBS course with 50 seats for the academic year 2025-26.

The Medical Assessment & Rating Board (MARB) of the National Medical Commission (NMC), vide public notices dated December 5, 2024 and December 19, 2024, had invited applications for the establishment of new medical colleges for the academic year 2025–26.

“Pursuant to the said notices, the NMC received an application for the establishment of a new medical college, namely Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence, along with several other applications. After following the due process, including scrutiny of documents and physical inspection by expert assessors, the MARB granted a LoP to the said college. Accordingly, admissions were made by the institution,” read a letter issued by NMC.

“However, over the past two weeks, the NMC has received multiple complaints containing serious allegations against the institution, inter alia, regarding inadequate infrastructure, insufficient clinical material, shortage of qualified full-time teaching faculty and inadequate number of resident doctors,” it noted.

“The MARB decided to conduct a surprise physical inspection to verify the veracity of the complaints. The assessment report submitted by the team established that the complaints were true and substantiated. The deficiencies observed were gross and substantial in nature,” it stated.

“Continuation of the institution under such circumstances would have seriously jeopardised the quality of medical education and adversely affected the academic interests of the students,” it further said.

“To safeguard the interests of the students already admitted for the academic year 2025–26, the state/UT authorities have been authorised to accommodate such students in other medical institutions within the union territory, as supernumerary seats, in accordance with applicable norms,” the medical commission concluded.

Locals and various Hindu organisations were demanding reservation to Hindu candidates on the grounds that the medical college was made and being largely run out of donations of Hindu devotees at Shri Mata Vaishno Devi shrine.

Earlier during the day, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah had asked the BJP government adjust the students to other medical colleges and close the newly opened medical college to end the controversy. Omar accused the BJP for its alleged communal politics on education, sports and food habits.

Omar said, “The children passed exams and secured seats on their hard work. None did any favour to them. If you don’t want them there then adjust them somewhere else.”

“In the given scenario, I don’t feel that students themselves would like to study there. We request GOI and the health ministry to adjust these children in other colleges. Had I been a parent of these students, I wouldn’t have sent them. We wouldn’t want them to study where there’s so much politics,” he added. “Give our children another medical college and close that medical college (Vaishno Devi). We don’t need such a medical college. Adjust these children in good government medical colleges,” he asserted.

When asked about BJP’s senior leader and MLA Sham Lal Sharma’s demand to make Jammu a separate state, the CM sarcastically asked who has stopped the BJP from doing so.

“They have already ruined Ladakh by separating it from J&K. Now, if they want to make Jammu a separate state then who is stopping them. They should have done it in 2019 itself when they were doing all this (revocation of Article 370 and bifurcation of J&K in two UTs),” he said.