China returned medical students: SC tells Centre to look from Humanitarian Angle

The apex court has advised the Centre to look at the case of the accommodation demand of China returned Indian medical students from the humanitarian angle.

Supreme Court has sought the Centre's stand on the petitions filed by China returned Indian medical students who were unable to complete their clinical training in China due to Covid-19 induced travel restrictions. These students are demanding to be accommodated in the Indian medical education system on humanitarian grounds.

A Division Bench, comprising Justices B.R. Gavai and Vikram Nath heard the case. Senior Advocate S Nagamuthu informed the bench that despite a bench led by Justice Hemant Gupta allowing repatriated Indian students of the batch 2015-20 to undergo clinical training in India and get provisionally registered, the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu had refused to extend similar relief to students of the batch 2016-21 who were hit by the same travel curbs, as reported by Live Law.

"This court has held that the order passed in the other batch would also be applicable to our case. Therefore, the students who joined the medical course in China in 2016 should be given the same benefits. Several state medical councils have complied. Only Kerala and Tamil Nadu have refused. This is when we are covered by two judgements of this court," he submitted in the court.

The bench said that the Centre need to look at the case from a humanitarian angle, to which the counsel replied, "After 3 months, another batch will stand here. This is never-ending. How can we play with human lives like this?"

A similar case of Ukraine's returned medicos is still going on in the Supreme Court, where the medicos are demanding to be accommodated in the Indian medical colleges.

Read more:

• Supreme Court hearing on accommodation of Ukraine returned medicos on Dec 8
• Scores of Indian students still wait for visas to rejoin courses in China