A three-judge Bench comprising former Chief Justice M M Punchhi, and justices K T Thomas and S S M Quadri, after perusing the Bombay, Punjab, Rajasthan and Maharashtra Medical Acts, which regulate the maintenance of register of medical practitioners and the entitlement to practice allopathic medicines, held that the bar in Section 15(2)(b) of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 would not apply to them since they were registered under the laws in force in the states.

Disposing off a batch of appeals by Dr Mukhtiar Chand of Punjab and others, the Bench held that a harmonious reading of Section 15 of the 1956 Act and Section 17 of the IndianMedicines Central Council Act, 1970 led to the conclusion that there was no scope for a person enrolled on a state register of the Indian medicines or the central register of the Indian medicines to practise modern scientific medicine, in any of its branches, unless that person was also enrolled on a state medical register within the meaning of the 1956 Act.

``Therefore, in a broader sense, the right to prescribe drugs of a system of medicine would be synonymous with the right to practise that system of medicines. In that sense, the right to prescribe allopathic drugs cannot be wholly divorced from the claim to practise allopathic medicines,'' the Bench observed.

The Bench said the upshot of its discussion was that Rule 2(ee)(iii) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945 as effected from May 14, 1960 was valid and did not suffer from the want of legislative competence and the notifications issued by the State Governments there under were not ultra vires of the said rule and were legal.

The positionwith regard to medical practitioners of Indian medicines, holding degrees in integrated courses, the Court said, was on the same plain in as much as if any State act recognised their qualifications as sufficient for registration in the State medical register, the prohibition contained in Section 15(2)(b) of the 1956 Act would not apply.