Check a Medical College's NMC Approval Before You Enrol

A medical college may not lawfully open its doors, start a postgraduate course, or increase its number of seats without the prior permission of the Medical Assessment and Rating Board. That permission is not a formality and it is not permanent. A college can hold permission to admit students in one year, be assessed the next, and have its intake reduced or its admissions stopped. Before you pay a fee that often runs into lakhs, you are entitled to see where the college actually stands.

The danger is not usually an outright fake college. It is a real college operating on a permission that is narrower, or shakier, than the prospectus implies.

A family pays the first year's fee at a new private medical college on the strength of a glossy brochure. The brochure says “NMC approved”. Two things can be true at once: the college does hold permission to run an MBBS course, and the specific seats it is selling this year were never sanctioned. Or the college holds permission, but the Rating Board has since recommended withdrawal of recognition for failing to maintain minimum standards.

Neither fact will appear in the brochure. Both are, by statute, matters of public record.

A college can clear the first and fail the third. “Approved” in a prospectus rarely tells you which of these four it means. Ask which one, in writing.

Section 28 sub-section 1 is blunt: no person shall establish a new medical college, or start any postgraduate course, or increase the number of seats, without obtaining prior permission of the Medical Assessment and Rating Board.

The Board considers a scheme against the criteria in section 29, which are worth knowing because they are the things a weak college is usually short of:

• adequacy of financial resources
• whether adequate academic faculty and other necessary facilities have been provided, or would be provided within the time limit specified in the scheme
• whether adequate hospital facilities have been provided, or would be provided within that time limit
• such other factors as may be prescribed

Note the phrase “or would be provided”. Permission can be granted on a promise of future faculty and future hospital beds. That is lawful, and it is exactly why a rating check matters more than a permission check.

Section 26 sub-section 1 clause e places a publication duty on the Rating Board. It shall make available on its website or in the public domain the assessment and ratings of medical institutions at regular intervals. If you cannot find the rating for a college, that absence is itself something you may lawfully ask about.

Section 26 sub-section 1 clause f lists what the Board can do to a failing college: issue a warning, impose a monetary penalty, reduce intake, stop admissions, and recommend to the Commission that recognition be withdrawn.

Section 38 then lets the Commission withdraw recognition where courses of study and examinations do not conform to the standards set by the education boards, or where the standards and norms for infrastructure, faculty and quality of education are not adhered to.

1. Search the college on the NMC's public list: the NMC college and course search. Match the exact course and the exact academic year, not just the college name.
2. Cross-check against the NMC list of colleges teaching MBBS.
3. Look for the assessment and rating the Rating Board is required to publish under section 26 sub-section 1 clause e.
4. Ask the college, in writing, for the letter of permission for the specific course and year you are being admitted to, and the sanctioned intake for that year.
5. If any of these do not resolve, put the questions to the Commission under the Right to Information Act, 2005.

Do the fourth step even when the first three look clean. A written answer from the college, on its letterhead, is the document you will need if the seat later turns out not to exist.

The National Medical Commission is a public authority. So is a government medical college. Send this to the Public Information Officer of the Commission.

Application under section 6 of the Right to Information Act, 2005

To: The Public Information Officer, National Medical Commission

1. Please provide the permission granted under section 28 of the
   National Medical Commission Act, 2019 to [name of college] for the
   [MBBS or named PG course] for the academic year [year], including the
   sanctioned number of seats.
2. Please state whether any application by the said college to increase
   the number of seats for that year was disapproved, and if so provide
   the reasons recorded.
3. Please provide the latest assessment and rating of the said college
   carried out under section 26 sub-section 1 clauses c and d, and state
   the date on which it was placed in the public domain.
4. Please state whether any warning, monetary penalty, reduction of
   intake or stoppage of admissions has been imposed on the said college
   under section 26 sub-section 1 clause f in the last three years, with
   dates and the operative part of each order.
5. Please state whether any proceeding for withdrawal of recognition
   under section 38 is pending or has concluded in respect of the said
   college or the qualification it grants.

Fee of rupees ten is enclosed.

Draft it with the AI RTI Drafter. Thirty days of silence is a deemed refusal, and the First Appeal Builder takes it from there.

Question 4 is the one that changes decisions. A college under a stoppage-of-admissions order is still capable of printing a prospectus.

Three replies, three meanings.

• Permission granted, rating published, no adverse order. The ordinary case. Proceed, and keep the reply.
• Permission granted, but no rating in the public domain. Not proof of wrongdoing. The Board's publication duty under section 26 sub-section 1 clause e is on the Board, not the college. Ask the Board why, and note the answer.
• Permission granted for fewer seats than the college is selling. This is the one that ends careers before they start. Stop, and get the sanctioned-intake figure in writing before any payment.

A college that refuses to give you its letter of permission in writing has told you something, even if it has not told you what it meant to.

Not by itself. Section 28 requires separate prior permission to establish a college, to start a postgraduate course, and to increase the number of seats. A college may hold one and not another. Ask which permission, for which course, for which academic year, and ask for the letter.

Because section 29 allows permission to be granted where faculty and hospital facilities “would be provided” within the time limit in the scheme. Permission can rest on a promise. The assessment and rating under section 26 tells you whether the promise was kept, and the Rating Board is required to publish it.

Yes. Section 38 permits the Commission to withdraw recognition where the courses of study and examinations do not conform to the standards specified by the education boards, or where standards and norms for infrastructure, faculty and quality of education are not adhered to. Recognition is a continuing state, not a permanent stamp.

Under section 26 sub-section 1 clause f it may issue a warning, impose a monetary penalty, reduce the intake, stop admissions, and recommend to the Commission that recognition be withdrawn. These are graded responses, so a college under a warning is in a different position from one under a stoppage of admissions.

Often not directly, and that is why the sample application above is addressed to the National Medical Commission rather than to the college. The Commission holds the permission letters, the assessments, the ratings, and the record of any penalty. Ask the body that holds the record.

Ask the Commission to say that in writing and to name the body that does hold the record, then apply to that body. Where the record is one the Commission or its Rating Board is itself required to generate, such as the assessment and ratings under section 26 sub-section 1 clause e of the NMC Act, a plea that someone else holds it does not sit easily. Say exactly that in the first appeal.

Run the two public searches, then send the RTI, then pay. The order matters, because a refund fight after admission is a far worse place to stand than an unanswered question before it. Keep every reply, including the college's own letter, because these are the documents a consumer forum or a writ court will actually read.

The wider technique for extracting a written answer from a reluctant public authority is in The RTI Playbook. For the exemptions a Public Information Officer may lawfully claim, see the RTI Act 2005.

If your question is about the doctor rather than the college, the companion guide is how to check if a doctor is registered with the NMC.

• The National Medical Commission Act, 2019, sections 26, 28, 29, 35 and 38: India Code, Act 30 of 2019
• NMC college and course search: National Medical Commission
• NMC list of colleges teaching MBBS: National Medical Commission
• The Right to Information Act, 2005: RTI Act 2005 on RTI Wiki

Reviewed by Dr. Shrawan Kumar Pathak. Section references are quoted from the NMC Act, 2019 as published on India Code. Permission and rating status change from year to year, so verify for the specific academic year you are admitted to.