{"id":63242,"date":"2017-02-08T17:26:02","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T00:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=63242"},"modified":"2017-02-08T17:26:25","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T00:26:25","slug":"govt-vows-to-implement-court-ruling-saitm-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/02\/08\/govt-vows-to-implement-court-ruling-saitm-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Govt vows to implement court ruling  SAITM controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><span class=\"article_date\">by Zacki Jabbar\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"article_date\">February 8, 2017, 10:15 pm<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The government said yesterday that if the Medical Council refused to recognise MBBS graduates of the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine in keeping with last week\u2019s Appeal Court directive it would take legal measures to ensure implementation.<\/p>\n<p>Higher Education and Highways Minister Lakshman Kiriella addressing the weekly Cabinet Press Briefing at the Parliamentary Complex, said that both the Sri Lanka Medical Council (SLMC) and the government could be hauled up for contempt of Court if the order was not followed.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Verdana;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.island.lk\/modules\/modPublication\/article_title_images\/16000060p1-4.jpg\" alt=\"article_image\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I requested Chairman of the SLMC Professor Carlo Fonseka during a recent three hour meeting with him, to be fair and register the SAITM graduates, he gave a very evasive answer. It was due to this that the students sought legal action&#8221; Kiriella noted adding that the Chairman of South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM), Dr. Neville Fernando had even offered to hand over the teaching hospital owned by him to the State, for it to be run as a public \u2013 private partnership, on the lines of Sri Jayawardenepura hospital.<\/p>\n<p>A three judge bench of the Court of Appeal upholding an application by one of the first batch of 30 SAITM graduates challenging the SLMC\u2019s refusal to register the students as medical practioners, ruled that the SLMC had exceeded the power conferred on it, without any legal basis.<\/p>\n<p>The SLMC, the Court said was entitled to submit its recommendations, but in terms of the Medical Ordinance, its role ended there, as the Subject Minister was empowered with regard to implementation.<\/p>\n<p>Minister Kiriella responding to a question said that permitting institutions such as SAITM to function, did not mean that the government would not provide free eduction as alleged by a section of the Opposition.&#8221;It was the UNP that introduced free education. We will ensure that it be continued for the benefit of the masses.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Zacki Jabbar\u00a0Courtesy The Island February 8, 2017, 10:15 pm The government said yesterday that if the Medical Council refused to recognise MBBS graduates of the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine in keeping with last week\u2019s Appeal Court directive it would take legal measures to ensure implementation. Higher Education and Highways Minister Lakshman [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}