( 1 ) THE petitioner is an Orthopaedics Doctor and is aggrieved by the order dated 23. 06. 2003 passed by the Delhi Medical Council (for short, `dmc ), the respondent herein whereby the petitioner has been debarred from medical practice for a period of six weeks from the date of the said order.

( 2 ) THE matter raised in issue is the jurisdiction of the respondent to proceed against the petitioner since it is the contention of the petitioner that he not being registered with DMC, the respondent Council has no jurisdiction to proceed on disciplinary issue against the petitioner. Medical Council of India (for short, `mci ) was not made a party to the present petition, but this petition was heard along with WP (C) No. 5089/2003, which has also been filed by the petitioner herein in which MCI is impleaded as respondent No. 2. Thus, submissions were heard on behalf of MCI by Mr. Maninder Singh even in the present matter.

( 3 ). THE undisputed facts are that the petitioner herein passed as M. S. Orthopaedics from S. N. Medical College, Agra, Uttar Pradesh and completed his Ph. D. from Central Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedics Moscow (Russia ). The petitioner is registered with MCI as registered practitioner.

( 4 ) ONE Mrs. Pushpa Soin, who was operated on by the petitioner in respect of knee joint problem on 10. 04. 2001, made a complaint against the petitioner. It is this complaint which has given rise to the impugned order.

( 5 ) IN order to appreciate the contours of the controversy, it would be necessary to consider provisions of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 (hereinafter to be referred to as, `imc Act ) and Delhi Medical Council Act, 1997 (hereinafter to be referred to as,`dmc Act ). The provisions of Section 15 (1) of IMC Act require a person holding adequate medical qualifications as per schedule of the Act to enroll himself on any State Medical Register. Section 21 of IMC Act refers to the Indian Medical Register, which is to contain names of the persons who are for the time being enrolled on any State Medical Register and who possess the recognised medical qualifications. Section 22 requires copies of the State Medical Registers to be sent to the MCI for facilitating entry into the Indian Medical Register. Section 24 empowers the MCI to remove the name of a person from the Indian Medical Register. The petitioner herein registered with MCI in the year 1986.

( 6 ) THE problem has arisen not only in this matter but in other matters giving rise to various disputes on account of the fact that all the States of the country have not provided for a State Act. Insofar as Delhi is concerned, the Act came into being only in the year 1997 and was notified and published in the Gazette on 22. 08. 1997.

( 7 ) THE DMC Act refers to two terminologies in respect of the doctors, which are `medical practitioner or `practitioner and `registered medical practitioner . These two terms are defined in the provisions of Sections 2 (7) and 2 (14) of the DMC Act. The same are as under :- " 2. Definitions. -. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (7) `medical practitioner or `practitioner means a person who is engaged in the practice of modern scientific system of medicine and all its branches and has qualifications as prescribed in the First, Second or Third Schedule to the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 (102 of 1956);. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (14) `registered practitioner means a medical practitioner having registerable qualification as prescribed in the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 (102 of 1956) whose name is, for the time being, entered in the register, but does not include a person whose name is provisionally entered in the register;"

( 8 ) THE definition of `register is given under Section 2 (13) of the DMC Act, which is as under :- "2. (13) `register means the register of medical practitioners prepared or deemed to be prepared and maintained under this Act;"

( 9 ) A reading of the aforesaid provisions would show th

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