The medical education department led by veteran NCP leader Hasan Mushrif is facing flak over the mishandling of the much delayed election to Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC).
While the election was due in 2022, in the last three years, the department appointed three administrators—Dilip Mhaisekar, Pallavi Saple and then Dr V M Rughwani, a private practitioner from Nagpur. Govt failed to appoint a regular registrar; initially, the charge was given to a Pune-based associate professor and then to one from Palghar.
As a result, the registrar, who was required to be present in the head office daily, was not available and around 70,000 doctors could not renew their registration. Aggrieved by the situation, a section of the doctors’ association moved HC , which did not stay the election, following which the association filed a special leave petition before SC. The apex court stayed the election and asked govt to come before it on April 7 after complying with seven key issues .
The main issue was the returning officer’s (RO) appointment. As per MMC rules, the RO must be of the rank of undersecretary or above in govt. Following SC’s order, the medical education department appointed an undersecretary in Mantralaya as the RO and initiated the polling process on April 3. SC stayed the election again after the petitioners said its directions had not been complied with and that merely replacing the RO wasn’t enough.
A former MMC administrator felt that the medical education department must fix responsibility for wrong interpretation of the SC order as the entire episode has caused a huge embarrassment for the Mahayuti govt.
New CIC’s task cut out
Veteran journalist Rahul Pande will be the new chief information commissioner (CIC) of Maharashtra, a post that was lying vacant for more than two years. Earlier, Pande was the Nagpur and Sambhajinagar information commissioner, where his performance was excellent.
In the corridors of power, he is considered close to CM Devendra Fadnavis. Social activists have congratulated Fadnavis for selecting a non-bureaucrat for the prestigious post since by and large, it was assumed that only retired bureaucrats are eligible for the post. If a former chief secretary is to be believed, then former or retiring chief secretaries are not keen on the CIC post since the tenure has been reduced from five years to three years. They prefer five-year tenure posts, like in MERC, state election commission or MahaRera.
The biggest challenge before Pande will be to reduce case pendency. According to reports, over 1 lakh appeals are pending before commissioners across the state. Secondly, Pande will have to take on vexatious applicants, who habitually and without reasonable grounds continue legal proceedings under RTI Act. It is considered an abuse of the legal system. Recently, Pune information commissioner Makrand Ranade dismissed more than 17,000 applications under the Act after he found no substance in them and held that it amounted to harassment of the administration. If a veteran scribe is to be believed, then a comprehensive list of vexatious applicants has been placed at Pune and other offices.
