The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Decisions

Privy Council Appeal No. 9 of 1996

Dr. Subhash Chandra Malliwal Appellant

v.

The General Medical Council Respondent

FROM

THE HEALTH COMMITTEE OF THE

GENERAL MEDICAL COUNCIL

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ORAL JUDGMENT OF THE LORDS OF THE JUDICIAL

COMMITTEE OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL,

Delivered the 25th July 1996

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Present at the hearing:-

Lord Mustill

Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead

Lord Hoffmann

  ·[Delivered by Lord Mustill]

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1. On two of the previous occasions when this matter has been before the Board, the Board has thought it right to say that it was a sad case.  It has become no less sad with the passage of years. Nevertheless it is the task of the Board to apply the law which binds it.

2. Essentially the complaint made by Dr. Malliwal, who as on previous occasions has presented his arguments with courtesy and moderation, is that the Health Committee did not correctly assess the evidence brought before it and did not correctly arrive at its true weight and meaning.  It is said, and their Lordships need not go into details, that the Health Committee attached too much weight to some of the reports before it and too little to others. In particular Dr. Malliwal complains, as he has complained before, that he was at the very outset of his medical history the victim of a fundamental misdiagnosis and he also says that the nature of the battery of tests applied to him is such as to be inherently biased against persons who are in his position as to race, the stress to which he has been subjected, and other matters which would make those tests unreliable.  

3. These complaints were fully ventilated before the Health Committee on the most recent occasion as they have been before.  It is the task of that Committee to weigh up the evidence and to decide what it amounts to. It is not the task of their Lordships to perform that exercise again and to decide whether the decision of the Health Committee was right.  The court has jurisdiction to intervene only if an error of law is disclosed.  The only possible error of law that could be asserted in this case is the one asserted in appropriate language in the case of the appellant, namely, that no reasonable decision-making body reasonably directing itself could reasonably have come to the decision under attack.

4. Their Lordships have considered whether Dr. Malliwal has on this occasion satisfied that test, which is a very severe test.  They are constrained to conclude that he has not.  The fact-finding body is the Health Committee and their Lordships are quite unable to see any ground upon which it would be proper to interfere with the facts as found.  They naturally sympathise with the unhappy situation in which Dr. Malliwal finds himself as they have sympathised before.  But there is nothing in law which they can or should do.  Their Lordships will accordingly humbly advise Her Majesty that the appeal should be dismissed.

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