NMC Internship Abroad Rule: The 2026 Court Challenges

If you joined a foreign medical college on or after 18 November 2021, the rules say your one year internship must be done at the same university that gave you your degree. Two High Courts are hearing challenges to that internship abroad rule in 2026. Neither court has stopped the rule. So it still applies today.

Key takeaways

• The rule comes from the Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate Regulations, 2021, made by the National Medical Commission, the body that regulates medical education in India. It applies to students who joined on or after 18 November 2021.

• The Delhi High Court is hearing a petition that asks for the 2021-22 batch to be excused from the one year internship abroad. The case is W.P.(C) 6035/2026. It was next listed on 25 September 2026.

• The Madhya Pradesh High Court has a separate case against the Commission that has been waiting for a government reply since June 2023. On 18 September 2026 the Chief Justice gave the government a last chance to reply, and listed it for 29 October 2026.

• No court has put the rule on hold. Until one does, a student who skips the internship abroad cannot be registered to practise in India.

• A similar rule in the older 2002 regulations, which said the whole course had to be studied at one institute abroad, was struck down by the Delhi High Court in 2013 and that decision was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.

What exactly does the internship abroad rule say?

Regulation 4 of the Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate Regulations, 2021 lists what a foreign medical graduate needs before India will let them practise. One of those conditions is an internship. The regulation says the student must have

Two words there do the damage. The internship has to be twelve months long, and it has to be at the same institution. Not a partner hospital in another country. Not a hospital back home in India.

Schedule I of the same regulations says it again, and more strictly:

So the course, the training and the internship all have to happen in one place, in one country. Schedule I adds one more limit that families rarely hear about. The whole degree has to be finished within ten years of the day the student joined.

Why is this rule hard for some students?

Because a student can follow every instruction they were given and still fail the test.

This affects a large group. In the June 2026 session of FMGE, the exam a foreign medical graduate must clear before working in India, 36,300 candidates appeared and 4,635 passed, which is 12.77 per cent or roughly one in eight. Every one of those graduates is then checked against Regulation 4 in full, and the internship abroad rule is part of that check.

Think about a student who joined a university in 2021 or early 2022 and then could not stay in that country. Some universities moved teaching online. Some offered to transfer students to a partner university in another country and finish the degree there. At the time that looked like the sensible thing to do.

Under the 2021 rules, it is not. A degree finished at a second university, or an internship done anywhere other than the institution that awarded the degree, does not meet Regulation 4. The student can clear the exam and still be refused registration.

That is the gap both court cases sit in.

What is the Delhi High Court case about?

The case is W.P.(C) 6035/2026, Saurav Kumar and Ors versus Union of India and Anr. A writ petition is a case asking a High Court to protect a right under the Constitution. It is being heard by Justice Jasmeet Singh, and the National Medical Commission is the second respondent.

The petition asks for five things. The fourth one is the internship point, and the order of 4 May 2026 on the Delhi High Court case status record sets it out in the petitioners' own words:

Notice is a formal instruction to the other side to come to court and answer. The court issued notice the same day, on 4 May 2026.

The case has been listed fourteen times since. The government has not yet taken a position. On 20 August 2026 its counsel told the court she was going to have a meeting with the department. On 25 August 2026 she said the issue will be considered. Neither is an answer.

On 18 September 2026 the court turned to the students instead. It asked them to file a sworn statement showing how many of them were unable to travel between 18 November 2021 and March 2022, and to produce proof that there were no flights to the countries where they had taken admission. The court also asked whoever is running the case to show that all the other petitioners had authorised them to do it.

That direction matters. The court is testing whether these students genuinely could not reach their universities, rather than chose not to. The case was listed again for 25 September 2026.

There is no interim order. An interim order is a temporary decision that protects people while the case is still going on. Without one, the rule applies to every student in the case exactly as it did before they filed it.

What is happening in the Madhya Pradesh High Court?

A second case is running in Jabalpur, and its story is about delay.

The case is WP No. 12555 of 2023, Dr. Anoop Pachouri versus The Union of India and Others. It was registered on 5 June 2023. The three respondents are the Union of India through the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the State of Madhya Pradesh, and the National Medical Commission. The court registry has classified it under ultra vires cases, which is the category used when someone argues that a rule goes beyond the power the law gave the body that made it.

The court issued notice on 8 June 2023, three days after the case was registered, and the notices went out to all three respondents on 19 June 2023.

Then very little happened. The case status record of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh shows five hearings in three years, before five differently constituted benches. On 20 November 2025 the respondents asked for time to file their reply and were given four weeks. Ten months after that, on 18 September 2026, Chief Justice Alpesh Y. Kogje and Justice Vivek Rusia recorded this:

So a case against the Commission has been pending for three years and three months without the government putting its side on paper. That is the fact worth holding on to. Court challenges to these rules move slowly, and a student cannot plan a career around one.

Has a rule like this been struck down before?

Yes, and this is the part almost nobody mentions.

The rules that applied before 2021 were the Screening Test Regulations, 2002. In 2010 a clause was added to them, clause 4(3), which said a student must have studied the medical course at the same institute abroad for the whole duration of the course. That is close to what Schedule I of the 2021 rules says now.

The official copy of the 2002 regulations hosted by the Commission carries a note under that clause. It records that clause 4(3) was quashed by the Delhi High Court on 27 September 2013 in WP (c) No. 1655/2013, and that the High Court's judgment was upheld by the Supreme Court by an order dated 30 January 2018 in Civil Appeal No. 11321/2013.

The two clauses are not identical. The old one was about where the course was studied. The current one is about the course, the training and the internship together. But a same institution condition has been tested in court before and did not survive. That history is why lawyers keep bringing these cases, and it is a fair thing for a family to know.

It is not a reason to gamble. The 2021 rules are in force now, and the older decision does not apply to them.

What does this mean for you right now?

Work from the rule, not from the case.

1. Find out which rule book you are under. If your classes started before 18 November 2021 you are under the 2002 regulations, which had no internship abroad condition at all. If they started on or after that date you are under the 2021 rules and the internship condition applies to you.

2. Ask your university in writing where your internship will be done. Ask for it on university letterhead, naming the hospitals. If any part of it is at another university or in another country, that is a problem you need to solve now and not in your final year.

3. Do not accept a transfer to a partner university without checking this first. A transfer can end the degree's usefulness in India even when the teaching is perfectly good.

4. Keep every document that shows where you were. Passport stamps, visa pages, hostel records, attendance records. The Delhi High Court has just asked students to prove they could not travel. Proof of where you were and when is now worth more than any assurance.

5. Do not wait for a judgment. One case has been waiting three years for a government reply. The other has no interim protection. Neither is a plan.

If you are unsure which rule book covers you, or whether your university's internship arrangement will pass, bring us your admission letter and your academic calendar and we will read them against Regulation 4 with you. Talk to us while you can still change something.

What to read next

• Which NMC rules apply to you is the plain guide to the 18 November 2021 dividing line.

• The 2021-22 batch petition covers the Delhi case in full, including the dates that split the batch.

• NExT or FMGE in 2026 explains which exam you actually sit after a foreign degree.

• New NMC rules for MBBS 2026 is the running list of every change the Commission made this year.

• How to check NMC and WDOMS recognition turns these rules into a check you can run on your own university.

• MBBS in Philippines is the clearest example of a country where the internship condition decides everything.

• FMG internship stipend in India covers the second internship, the one you do after you come back.