Doctor duo approaches HC for interim stay on medical council order

Colaba-based doctor duo who is running an IVF clinic on Thursday approached the Bombay High court for an interim stay on the Maharashtra Medical Council of India order that suspended both the doctors' registration for a period of three months.

The Medical Council said that the doctors Dr Aniruddha and Dr Anjali Malpani promised guaranteed pregnancy on their website and even offered refund if the treatment failed. A complaint against the couple was filed by the Advertising Standards Council of India in 2014 and accordingly the registration was cancelled.

Senior Counsel Darius Khambatta who represented the doctors told the bench of Justice S C Dharmadhikari and G S Kulkarni of the Bombay High court, "My clients got the notice copy recently and they have been treating several patients whose treatments will suffer with the cancellation of registrations of the couple as they have already given lot of patients costly medicines and the treatments need to continue. Also my client was suspended without any meeting that was carried out of medical council."

"We don't take people for a ride and return money to people if the IVF is not successful," said Khambatta. The court was also told that the line of guaranteed pregnancy was removed from the website of the doctors. "The matter is of 2014 and after that only your license has been suspended. We don't intend to interfere in the matter at this moment," said Justice Dharmadhikari and refused to presently grant any stay on the Medical Council order of suspension.

The bench asked Medical council to bring all the documents related to the suspension before it and has kept the next hearing on 29th of April. Till then the doctor couple who have a clinic opposite Sahakari Bhandar, Colaba, Malpani's Infertility Clinic won't be able to practice. The license of the doctors have been cancelled due to misleading advisements by the council.