Should AYUSH docs conduct surgeries? SC seeks govt reply | India News

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday sought responses of the Union government and Central Council of Indian Medicine on a PIL challenging laws permitting practitioners of ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, unani, sidda and homoeopathy to prescribe allopathic medicines and conduct surgeries, saying it would encourage quackery and endanger lives.
Appearing for Association of Medical Consultants, advocate Sunil Fernandes told a bench of Justices Hemant Gupta and Sudhanshu Dhulia that the two legislations — National Commission for Indian System of Medicine Act, 2020 and National Commission for Homoeopathy Act, 2020 — would allow non-scientific, unproven methods of medicine to be applied to the general public at large.
Fernandes said though the intent behind the two legislations was laudable as they wanted to overcome the shortage of doctors by merging alternative and modern medicine, these would fail to check malpractices by ‘quacks’ without qualification or experience. “The enactments, instead, legitimise the practice of quackery and pseudo-science,”he said.