The Supreme Court on Monday gave the Centre and the states two months to implement a 2021 law that can help check the mushrooming of illegal training institutes for allied healthcare professionals such as lab technicians and physiotherapists.

The National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions Act, 2021, mandates the establishment of regulatory bodies and state councils for all allied healthcare professions not covered by the National Medical Commission, Dental Council of India and similar regulatory bodies.

These professionals include those working in diagnostic laboratories, trauma centres, burn care, surgical/ anaesthesia-related technology, and physiotherapy.

The court passed the directions on a public interest petition moved by the Joint Forum of Medical Technologists of India, which said the authorities’ failure to implement the act had allowed the continued mushrooming of illegal and unregulated allied healthcare educational institutions.

“The proliferation of healthcare bodies is a matter of serious concern. Despite the passage of three years, both Union and states have completely failed to discharge their statutory duties. Learned additional solicitor-general Mr Vikramjit Banerjee states that counter will be filed in 2 weeks,” the bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra said.

“We direct (1) Union and states within 2 months take necessary steps to implement the act; (2) The health ministry shall within two weeks convene online meeting of all the secretaries of state family welfare to lay down roadmap to implement the acts; (3) Infrastructure be set up by all states and provisions are made functional….”

The bench asked the Centre, states and Union Territories to file their compliance reports in a tabulated format, and posted the next hearing to the third week of October.

The court allowed the petitioner to implead the commission chairperson as a respondent.

The act provides for “regulation and maintenance of standards of education and services by allied and healthcare professionals, assessment of institutions, maintenance of a central register and state register” of allied healthcare professions in the country.

At the outset, the bench said the law came into being on May 25, 2021, and that the Centre had not responded to a notice issued to it in September last year.

The petition said that historically, India has leaned towards “doctor-centred” healthcare delivery with very little attention to specialisation in the allied health sciences.

According to the petition, the 2021 act mandated the establishment of state councils within six months of the enforcement of the act. But, it said, only 14 of the 28 states had formed these councils, and some of them were non-functional.

Further, the Centre had not taken steps to frame regulations under the act, the petitioner said.

The petitioner complained that the lack of properly regulated healthcare training institutions seriously jeopardises patients’ medicare. It complained that there is no uniformity in, or regulation of, the qualifications prescribed for these professional courses by private organisations.