The National Medical Commission (NMC) on Tuesday withdrew permission for the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence in Reasi, Jammu and Kashmir, to run its MBBS course for the 2025-’26 academic year, the Hindustan Times reported.

The regulatory body said authorities in the Union Territory have been authorised to accommodate students already admitted to the college in other medical colleges to safeguard their interests.

The institute had faced protests in December after releasing its first MBBS admissions list. Of the 50 students selected, 44 were Muslims from Kashmir and six were Hindus from Jammu, of whom only three reportedly joined the course.

Protests were led by the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Sangharsh Samiti, with participation from the Bharatiya Janata Party, its parent organisation the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, and other Hindutva groups. Protesters demanded that the admissions list be cancelled and that preference be given to Hindu students, citing the institute’s establishment through donations to the Vaishno Devi shrine.

However, the rules do not permit religion to be considered in admissions, as the college is not classified as a minority institution, The Indian Express reported.

In a letter issued on Tuesday, the NMC said its Medical Assessment and Rating Board had invited applications in December 2024 for new medical colleges for the 2025-’26 academic year. Following “scrutiny of documents and physical inspection,” the institute was granted a Letter of Permission to run an MBBS course with 50 seats. “Accordingly, admissions were made by the institution,” the Hindustan Times quoted the letter as saying.

The commission added that over the past two weeks it had received multiple complaints alleging “inadequate infrastructure, insufficient clinical material, shortage of qualified full-time teaching faculty and inadequate number of resident doctors.”

A surprise physical inspection by the Medical Assessment and Rating Board found the “deficiencies” to be “gross and substantial in nature,” the NMC said. The commission added: “Continuation of the institution under such circumstances would have seriously jeopardised the quality of medical education and adversely affected the academic interests of the students.”