Act against unqualified traditional med practitioners, HC tells DGP

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Monday directed the Head of State Police to issue a circular to all SPs and Commissioners to take stringent action against those practising complementary and alternative medicine without proper qualification.

In 2015, Selvakumar, Shanmugam and 61 others filed a petition in the High Court complaining that the police were disrupting their right to practise complementary and alternative medicine such as Acupuncture, Electropathy and Yoga. The petitioners alleged that the State police were obstructing their practise despite them holding diploma in the related field.

They added that they have submitted a petition to the State government seeking approval for their diploma certificates, and sought a direction to the police to not disrupt their practise.

When the petition came up for hearing before Justice SM Subramaniam, the State government informed the court that the petitioners were not fully qualified to practise complementary and alternative medicine because the six-month diploma course that they completed was not approved. The government advocate added that allowing unqualified people to practise medicine would cause harm to the public.

After hearing the arguments, the judge said that even though the complementary and alternative medicine has been approved in the country, those who are not qualified to practise cannot claim any right to it.

He also ruled that the petitioners did not have valid certificates and were not registered with the Tamil Nadu Medical Council. Hence, they had no right to practise alternative medicine, said the court.

Justice Subramaniam then directed the State government to take stringent action against the unauthorised institutes that offer diploma courses that are not approved.

Further he directed the Director General of Police (DGP) to send a circular to all police Superintendents and Commissioners to conduct frequent inspection to find out whether unregistered and unauthorised people were involved in alternative medicine and take action against those concerned.