SC seeks help from Nilekani on MCI's inspections

The Supreme Court has asked Nandan Nilekani, who co-founded Infosys, to help in finding a technological solution with artificial intelligence, to address the problems arising out of inspections of private medical colleges by the regulator, Medical Council of India.

“There are incessant disputes which reach this court about what actually transpired at inspections of various private medical colleges by the MCI. The parties contest virtually every fact that is recorded in an inspection,” a bench of Justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara Rao noted.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appointed as amicus curiae, suggested to the court that a computer
network based technological solution which might include artificial intelligence could be considered. He asked the court to appoint an expert in the field like Nilekani.

MCI's counsel Gaurav Sharma accepted the suggestions put forth by Sibal.

“We accordingly request Nilekani to go into this problem and give concrete suggestions to this court at the earliest,” the court ordered.

The court asked Nilekani to take technical assistance from various IT companies like Wipro, Infosys, Accenture for making suggestions.

It directed the MCI to convene a meeting with Nilekani and Sibal within 15 days. The court also directed Sharma and Sibal to prepare a written note highlighting the problems for Nilekani to deal with and provide a solution for.

The court put a petition filed by Kerala's Al Azhar Medical College and Super Speciality Hospital for consideration after eight weeks.