Chettinad Academy of Research and Education vs The State of Tamil Nadu

2026:MHC:3645
W.A.No.83 of 2026
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS
RESERVED ON : 19.08.2026
DELIVERED ON : 08.09.2026
CORAM :
THE HONOURABLE MR. SUSHRUT ARVIND DHARMADHIKARI,
CHIEF JUSTICE
AND
THE HONOURABLE MR.JUSTICE G.ARUL MURUGAN
W.A.No.83 of 2026
and C.M.P.No s .742 and 15716 of 2026
Chettinad Academy of Research and Education
Established and Running Chettinad Institute of
Medical Services, Rep. by its Authorized Signatory,
Sivaramakrishnan Hariharan, Nallur Manamai,
East Coast Road, Thirukalunkundram Taluk,
Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu - 603 102.
Appellant(s)
Vs
1. The State of Tamil Nadu
Rep. by the Principal Secretary Health
and Family Department, Secretariat
Chennai – 600 009.
2. The Director
Directorate of Medical Education,
No.162, EVR Periyar Salaii, Kilpauk,
Chennai – 600 010.
3. National Medical Commission
Pocket-14, Sector-8, Dwaraka, Phase-I,
New Delhi - 110 077.
Respondent(s)
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PRAYER: Appeal filed under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent to set aside
the order dated 3.12.2025 passed by the learned Single Judge in
W.P.No.39123 of 2025.
For Appellant(s): Mr.Nithyeash Natraj
for Mr.Vaibhav Rangarajan Venkatesh
For Respondent(s):Mr.A.Abdul Hameed
Additional Advocate General-IV
Assisted by Mr.L.Gokulraj
Addl Govt Pleader for R1 and R2
Ms.Subharanjani Ananth
Standing Counsel for R3
JUDGMENT
THE CHIEF JUSTICE
This appeal is directed against the order dated 03.12.2025
passed by the learned Single Judge in W.P.No.39123 of 2025. By
that order, the writ petition filed by the appellant was disposed of
with a direction to obtain an Environmental Clearance Certificate
and a certificate from the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board before
the first respondent would consider granting an Essentiality
Certificate.
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2. Before we go into the rival submissions, it will be useful to
set out the facts leading up to the writ petition, since the
controversy has a fairly long history.
3.1. The appellant, Chettinad Academy of Research and
Education, purchased a property measuring 37.875 acres at Nallur-
Manamai, East Coast Road, Thirukalukundram Taluk, Chengalpattu
District, through an e-auction conducted by Indian Bank on
31.07.2024. The property had earlier belonged to Ponnaiyah
Ramajayam Institute of Science and Technology, [PRIST Trust], and
the sale was conducted under the Securitisation and Reconstruction
of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002
on an " as is where is " basis.
3.2. PRIST Trust had been granted an Essentiality Certificate
on 28.08.2014 for setting up a medical college with an annual
intake of 150 students on this very land. The college ran for a few
years, but recognition was declined for the academic years 2017-18
and 2018-19 because the institution had not met the norms
prescribed by the Medical Council of India. The college then stopped
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functioning and PRIST Trust did not apply for renewal in the years
that followed.
3.3. After acquiring the property, the appellant applied to the
National Medical Commission on 07.01.2025 seeking approval to
admit 150 students for the academic year 2025-26, under the name
Chettinad Institute of Medical Sciences. A show cause notice
followed on 28.05.2025, in which the Commission pointed out,
among other things, that the Essentiality Certificate on record still
stood in the name of PRIST Trust, and that since the appellant had
applied as a new entity, a fresh certificate in its own name was
required. The appellant replied on 02.06.2025, but the application
was rejected by the Commission on 08.07.2025.
3.4. The appellant then applied afresh for an Essentiality
Certificate on 22.08.2025. The first respondent, by its letter dated
09.10.2025, called upon the appellant to produce an Environmental
Clearance Certificate and a certificate from the Tamil Nadu Pollution
Control Board before the application could be taken further. It is this
letter, referred to as the impugned letter, that was under challenge
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before the learned Single Judge.
3.5. The case of the appellant, in short, was twofold. First,
that the Essentiality Certificate granted to PRIST Trust in 2014 had
never been withdrawn or cancelled, and since Section 13(6) of the
SARFAESI Act carries all statutory approvals attached to an asset
over to the auction purchaser, that certificate continued to hold
good in the appellant's favour, a position said to be reinforced by
Section 60(4) of the National Medical Commission Act, 2019, which
saves approvals granted under the earlier Medical Council of India
regime. Second, that an Environmental Clearance Certificate and a
Pollution Control Board certificate have nothing to do with the grant
of an Essentiality Certificate, since neither finds a place among the
requirements listed in Form 2 of the Establishment of Medical
College Regulations, 1999.
3.6. When the writ petition was first heard on 20.11.2025, the
learned Single Judge recorded that the appellant herein was
agreeable to a conditional Essentiality Certificate, one granted
subject to the two certificates being furnished later, and noted that
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such a practice had been followed by the State in the past. Rather
than go into the competing submissions at that stage, the learned
Judge thought it appropriate to first ascertain from the National
Medical Commission whether it would act upon a conditional
certificate of this kind, and the Commission was accordingly
impleaded as the third respondent.
3.7. On 24.11.2025, the Commission's stand was that it would
not accept a conditional Essentiality Certificate under any
circumstances. The appellant, in response, placed before the Court
three earlier instances in which the State had granted conditional
certificates, namely to PRIST Trust itself in 2014, to Azvargal Aaivu
Maiyam Trust in December 2022, and to Takshashila Medical College
in June 2025. To get instructions pertaining to the grant of
Essentiality Certificate to the last college, the Commission sought
time to verify its own records.
3.8. When the matter was finally heard, the Commission
clarified that the certificate issued to Takshashila Medical College
had, in fact, not been accepted in its conditional form, that the
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applicant college was allowed only 50 seats instead of the 150
sought, and that its case was different, because it concerned a
delay in furnishing a blood bank licence rather than the absence of
environmental clearance. The appellant, for its part, pointed to a
fourth instance, concerning Vels Institute of Science, Technology
and Advanced Studies, where a conditional certificate had been
granted without either of the two certificates in question.
3.9. The learned Single Judge, in the order under appeal, held
that the first respondent had followed no consistent yardstick while
granting conditional certificates in the past, and that this
inconsistency, left unchecked, would breed arbitrariness. Yet, having
said so, the learned Judge went on to hold that there can be no
equality in illegality, and that two wrongs do not make a right,
relying for this purpose on the judgment of the Supreme Court in
Medical Council of India v. V.N. Public Health and Educational
1
Trust . On this reasoning, the writ petition was disposed of with a
direction that the appellant obtain the Environmental Clearance
Certificate and the Pollution Control Board certificate before the first
1
(2016) 11 SCC 216
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respondent would issue the Essentiality Certificate, and it was
further directed that the State would not grant conditional
certificates in future, and that the Commission would act only upon
unconditional Essentiality Certificates.
4.1. Mr.Nithyaesh Natraj, learned counsel for the appellant,
submitted that though the appellant had raised in the writ petition
two grounds, the impugned judgment does not deal with either of
them. The first such ground was that the 2014 Essentiality
Certificate granted to PRIST Trust had never been revoked, and that
by operation of Section 13(6) of the SARFAESI Act, it passed to the
appellant along with the other statutory approvals attached to the
property, a position said to survive the coming into force of the
National Medical Commission Act by virtue of the saving clause in
Section 60(4). This ground finds no mention at all in the discussion
portion of the impugned judgment, though it was pleaded and the
contrary stand of the first respondent was noted in paragraph 10 of
that judgment.
4.2. He submitted that, secondly, the insistence on an
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Environmental Clearance Certificate and a Pollution Control Board
certificate as a precondition for the Essentiality Certificate has no
basis in law, since Form 2 of the 1999 Regulations, which sets out
what an Essentiality Certificate must certify, does not mention
either document. He further submitted that, an Essentiality
Certificate, is nothing more than the State Government's opinion on
whether a medical college is needed in a given area; it does not
travel into questions of environmental compliance, which are the
subject of entirely separate statutory regimes. This ground, too,
finds no answer in the impugned judgment.
4.3. Learned counsel further submitted that the observation in
paragraph 30 of the impugned judgment, that there is no escape for
the appellant from obtaining the two certificates, went beyond what
the appellant had ever argued. The appellant's case was never that
it should be exempted from these certificates altogether; its case
was only that their absence should not hold up the Essentiality
Certificate, and that the said certificates could instead be furnished
before the Commission at the stage of its own approval. The said
plea was not considered by the learned Single Judge in the way it
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was putforth.
5.1. Mr.Abdul Hameed, learned Additional Advocate General
appearing for the first and second respondents, supported the order
under appeal. He submitted that the Essentiality Certificate is not a
mechanical formality, but calls for the State Government's genuine
satisfaction that a medical college is needed and can function
properly at the proposed site, and that this satisfaction cannot be
divorced from statutory compliance such as environmental
clearance. He pointed out that the appellant's own building has a
built-up area far in excess of the threshold that attracts this
requirement and submitted that the first respondent was justified in
insisting on the two certificates.
5.2. On the question of the 2014 certificate, learned Additional
Advocate General submitted that it was tied to the institution that
then existed, and that once recognition was withdrawn and the
college stopped functioning, the certificate lost its purpose and
could not be treated as a live approval capable of passing to a
subsequent purchaser of the land. He submitted that the appellant,
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having entered the picture only after the SARFAESI sale, stands as
a new applicant and cannot claim the benefit of an approval granted
to a different institution.
6. Ms.Shubharanjani Ananth, learned Standing Counsel for the
National Medical Commission, reiterated the Commission's stand
that it will not act upon a conditional Essentiality Certificate, and
that whatever may have happened in the case of Takshashila
Medical College or Vels Institute, those were not treated by the
Commission as precedents it was bound to follow, and an error
committed in the past, if indeed it was one, could not be a ground
for repeating it in the appellant's case. She added that it is for the
State to stipulate minimum standard requirements.
7. We have heard learned counsel on both sides at length and
gone through the impugned judgment, the pleadings and the
material placed before the learned Single Judge.
8. We find that in the affidavit filed in the writ petition, the
appellant pleaded, in more than one paragraph, that the Essentiality
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Certificate granted to PRIST Trust in 2014 continued in force
because it had never been withdrawn, and that this position was
fortified by Section 13(6) of the SARFAESI Act and by the saving
clause under Section 60(4) of the National Medical Commission Act,
2019. The counter affidavit filed by the first respondent took a
contrary position, as recorded in paragraph 10 of the impugned
judgment, to the effect that the certificate lapsed once the college
stopped functioning. This was, therefore, very much a live and
contested issue. Yet the discussion in the impugned judgment does
not return to it. Paragraph 10 merely records the respondent's
stand; nowhere thereafter does the judgment weigh that stand
against the appellant's submission or arrive at a finding one way or
the other.
9. The same is true qua the second ground raised by the
appellant that an Environmental Clearance Certificate and a
Pollution Control Board certificate are not among the requirements
set out in Form 2 of the 1999 Regulations, and are accordingly
irrelevant to the grant of an Essentiality Certificate and those
certificates are relevant at some later stage of the approval process.
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This too was pleaded and argued, yet the impugned judgment
moves directly to the question of whether a conditional certificate
can be issued, without first settling whether the two certificates
have any bearing on the Essentiality Certificate at all. The two
questions are related, but they are not the same question, and one
cannot substitute for the other.
10. We think there is substance in the appellant's grievance
that these two issues were left unanswered. This by itself is
sufficient to require that the impugned judgment be set aside, since
a judgment that omits a live issue cannot be treated as a complete
or final disposal of the lis . However, since the question of the
conditional Essentiality Certificate was fully argued before us as
well, and since our view on it has some bearing on how the matter
should now proceed, we consider it appropriate to record our
opinion on that aspect too.
11. The reasoning in the impugned judgment on the grant of
conditional certificate proceeds in two diverse directions. In
paragraph 23, the learned Single Judge held that the first
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respondent had granted conditional certificates in some cases and
refused them in others, without any discernible yardstick, and that
such inconsistency would itself amount to discrimination. However,
in paragraph 27, the judgment turns the finding around and holds
that there can be no equality in illegality, treating the very grant of
a conditional certificate as an illegality in the first place. In arriving
at such finding, the learned Single Judge referred to the decision in
V.N.Public Health and Educational Trust (supra).
12. We have examined the decision, referred supra. It arose
from a case where the Essentiality Certificate had been made
conditional upon the availability of clinical material, a requirement
that Form 2 of the 1999 Regulations expressly required to exist at
the time of the application itself, and not as something to be
arranged later. The Supreme Court held, in that specific context,
that a certificate made conditional upon a mandatory requirement
was no certificate at all in the eyes of the Regulations. That is a fair
and narrow proposition, tied closely to the wording of Form 2. It
does not, in our reading, lay down a general rule that any condition
attached to an Essentiality Certificate renders it void, regardless of
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whether that condition concerns a Form 2 requirement or something
entirely outside its scope, such as environmental clearance. The
impugned judgment, in extending the principle laid down in
V.N.Public Health and Educational Trust (supra) to the facts of this
case without examining whether the condition here falls within Form
2, has, in our opinion, gone further than what is stipulated in the
decision of the Supreme Court, referred supra.
13. In observing as above, we are not holding that the
appellant is entitled to a total exemption from environmental
clearance or the Pollution Control Board certificate. The same is also
not the plea of the appellant either before the learned Single Judge
or before us. The consistent stand of the appellant is that it does
not seek to avoid these requirements, but, at the present stage, the
absence of the said two certificates, should not stand in the way of
issuance of the Essentiality Certificate, since compliance can be
demonstrated later, before the Commission while seeking final
approval. The finding in paragraph 30 of the impugned judgment,
that there is no escape for the appellant from these certificates,
addresses a case the appellant was not making, and to that extent
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proceeds on a misunderstanding of the submissions advanced by
the appellant.
14. For the purpose of deciding the appeal, it would be
appropriate to refer to Regulation 2(f) of the Establishment of New
Medical Institutions, Starting of New Medical Courses, Increase of
Seats for Existing Courses and Assessment and Rating Regulations,
2023, which defines “ Essentiality Certificate ” as under:
“2. In these Regulations, unless the context
otherwise requires the terms defined herein shall
bear the meaning assigned to them below and their
cognate expressions and variations shall be
construed accordingly -
...
(f) ‘ Essentiality Certificate’ (in its abbreviated
form EC) shall mean written permission from
the central or concerned state government or
the Union Territory administration as the case
may be for the establishment of a new medical
institution .”
15. Regulation 9(a) of the Regulations, 2023, which prescribes
that Essentiality Certificate should be submitted at the time of
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applicable, reads thus:
“9. No application submitted by the eligible entity
shall be entertained unless it is accompanied with -
(a)      Essentiality Certificate (EC) issued by
the concerned State Government or Union
Territory administration or the appropriate
authority as the case may be unless otherwise
specified. The EC shall be valid at the time of
application.”
16. Form-2, which deals with the subjects ‘Essentiality
Certificate, read thus:
“FORM-2
Subject: Essentiality Certificate
No. ...
Government of ...
The Department of Health
dated, the ...
To
(Applicant),
Sir,
The desired certificate is as follows:
(1) No. of institutions already existing in the State.
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(2) No. of seats available or number of doctors being
produced annually.
(3) No. of doctors registered with the State Medical
Council.
(4) No. of doctors in government service.
(5) No. of government posts vacant and those in
rural/difficult areas.
(6) No. of doctors registered with employment
exchange.
(7) Doctor-population ratio in the State.
(8) How the establishment of the college would
resolve the problem of deficiencies of qualified
medical personnel in the State and improve the
availability of such medical manpower in the State.
(9) The restrictions imposed by the State
Government, if any, on students who are not
domiciled in the State from obtaining admissions in
the State be specified.
(10) Full justification for opening of the proposed
college.
(11) Doctor-patient ratio proposed to be achieved.
The (name of the person) ... has applied for
establishment of a medical college at ... On careful
consideration of the proposal, the Government of ...
has decided to issue an essentiality certificate to the
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applicant for the establishment of a medical college
with ... (no.) seats.
It is certified that:
(a) The applicant owns and manages a 300-bedded
hospital which was established in ...
(b) It is desirable to establish a medical college in
the public interest.
(c) Establishment of a medical college at ... by ...
(name of the society/trust) is feasible.
(d) Adequate clinical material as per the Medical
Council of India norms is available.
It is further certified that in case the applicant fails to
create infrastructure for the medical college as per
the MCI norms and fresh admissions are stopped by
the Central Government, the State Government shall
take over the responsibility of the students already
admitted in the college with the permission of the
Central Government.
(e) The [Name of applicant ____________] own and
possesses ___________Acres of land in
___________[Village/Tehsil/Taluka/District] on
which non agricultural use of land is permitted and a
Medical College/Hospital can be established on it.
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(f) The building plan of the Hospital and Medical
College has been approved by the competent
authority, namely, ..., designated by the State
Government for such purposes on _____________.
(Copy of the approval is enclosed)
(g) The Hospital and Medical College have been
granted Completion Certificate/Building Use
Certificate by the competent authority, namely, ... ,
designated by the State Government for such
purposes on ...... (Copy of the Certificate is
enclosed)”
17. Applying the statutory framework, we find that the role of
the State Government in issuing an Essentiality Certificate is well-
defined. The statutory delegation under Form-2 of the Regulations,
1999 limits the inquiry to be conducted by the State to assessing
local medical manpower deficiencies, doctor-population ratios,
public interest/desirability, site feasibility and the availability of
adequate clinical material. The State Government should act within
the delegated capacity to evaluate local needs and feasibility. It
cannot act arbitrarily or insist upon parameters outside the scope of
Form 2 or the governing Parliamentary legislation.
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18. While environmental compliances (such as the
Environmental Clearance Certificate and Tamil Nadu Pollution
Control Board approval) are mandatory before constructing or
commissioning a medical institution under distinct environmental
statutes, they are not qualifying criteria prescribed under Form 2 for
evaluating the grant of an Essentiality Certificate. The lack of an
environmental clearance at the threshold cannot serve as a ground
for the State to withhold or defer the processing of an Essentiality
Certificate.
19. For the reasons given in the preceding paragraphs, the
other issues raised in this appeal pale into insignificance and are left
open to be decided in an appropriate case.
20. Accordingly, the writ appeal is allowed. The impugned
order of the learned Single Judge dated 03.12.2025 in
W.P.No.39123 of 2025 is set aside. The first respondent is directed
to process and consider the application of the appellant for grant of
the Essentiality Certificate strictly within the parameters and criteria
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set forth in Form 2 of the 1999 Regulations and in accordance with
law, without insisting on the prior production of an Environmental
Clearance Certificate or TNPCB approval at this stage.
There shall be no order as to costs. Consequently, the
connected miscellaneous petitions are closed.
(SUSHRUT ARVIND DHARMADHIKARI, CJ) (G.ARUL MURUGAN,J)
08.09.2026
Index : Yes
Neutral Citation : Yes
sasi
To:
1. The Principal Secretary Health
and Family Department
State of Tamil Nadu
Secretariat
Chennai – 600 009.
2. The Director
Directorate of Medical Education,
No.162, EVR Periyar Salaii, Kilpauk,
Chennai – 600 010.
3. National Medical Commission
Pocket-14, Sector-8, Dwaraka, Phase-I,
New Delhi - 110 077.
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2026:MHC:3645
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THE HON'BLE CHIEF JUSTICE
AND
G.ARUL MURUGAN, J.
(sasi)
W.A.No.83 of 2026

08.09.2026
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