SC notice to Centre on IMA plea against order allowing post-grad Ayurveda docs to perform surgery

The Supreme Court Monday sought response from the Centre on a plea by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) against a Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) order authorising post-graduate practitioners in specified streams of Ayurveda be trained to perform surgical procedures.

A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian issued notices to the Ministry of Ayush, CCIM and National Medical Commission while seeking their replies on the petition.

IMA has moved the top court seeking to set aside or quash the amendment to regulations to the Postgraduate Ayurveda Surgery by CCIM and declare that the council does not have the powers to include modern medicine in syllabus.

The notification by the CCIM listed 39 general surgery procedures and around 19 procedures involving the eye, ear, nose and throat by amending the Indian Medicine Central Council (Post Graduate Ayurveda Education) Regulations, 2016.

According to the November 20, 2020 gazette notification the procedures listed include removal of metallic and non-metallic foreign bodies from non-vital organs, excision of simple cyst or benign tumours of non-vital organs, amputation of gangrene, traumatic wound management, foreign body removal from stomach, squint surgery, cataract surgery and functional endoscopic sinus surgery.