Kolkata, July 7 The Calcutta High Court on Monday scrapped the decision of the West Bengal Medical Council suspending the medical registration of former Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Santanu Sen for two years.
The order from the single-judge bench of Justice Amrita Sinha came as a relief for Sen, since in the event of his medical registration remaining suspended for two years, he neither could have used the abbreviation of "Dr" before his name, nor could he have issued any medical prescription during that period.
The order at the same time came as a major embarrassment for the state medical council since the court termed the decision to suspend Sen for two years as "non-speaking" or "cryptic". In legal terminology, these adjectives are used to describe an administrative order that lacks a clear explanation or reasoning for its conclusion.
Justice Sinha also observed that the state medical council should have first sent a detailed report on their findings in the matter to Sen, and then heard the arguments of the latter, and finally come to a conclusion.
The judge also said that in case of further proceedings in the matter, the state medical council should follow the same procedure.
As per the order from the state medical council last week, Sen's medical registration had been suspended for two years on charges of citing the postgraduate qualification of the Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (Glasgow) on this letterhead without getting that qualification registered with the council.
A spokesman of the council stated that recently, an email was forwarded to Glasgow to confirm whether the holder of that qualification, which Sen claimed, could use that degree on the letterhead. However, no reply to the mail from Glasgow came.
Sen, however, claimed that the action against him was prompted by vendetta from a section within the council and then moved the Calcutta High Court challenging the decision of the state medical council.
Sen himself was a state government representative in the West Bengal Medical Council for a long time. However, soon after his differences with the party leadership over the R.G. Kar rape and murder issue surfaced, he was first suspended from the party and then removed from the council.
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