The case of Sengupta v The General Medical Council [2025] EWHC 123 (Admin) involves Dr. Rinku Sengupta’s (the claimant doctor), appeal against the Medical Practitioner’s Tribunal’s (MPT) decision to erase her from the medical register. The MPT’s decision was based on findings of dishonesty and deficient professional performance. The claimant doctor had provided incomplete and misleading information about her training and assessment of abilities when applying for a position at Birmingham Women’s Healthcare NHS Trust in 2007. Additionally, she took credit for work done by another doctor on a case report submitted to the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecologists in 2009. Her performance was rated “unacceptable” in 2008, and the Wales Deanery Assessment Panel concluded in 2009 that she was not suitable to continue training. 

The claimant doctor made multiple restoration applications after her erasure. Her first application in 2015 and second application in 2018 were both refused. The MPT decided not to suspend her right to make further restoration applications indefinitely after the second refusal. In 2021, the claimant doctor made a third restoration application, which was also refused in January 2022. The MPT found that she had not sufficiently remediated her clinical deficiencies and that there was a significant risk of repetition of her dishonest behaviour. 

Following the third refusal, the MPT decided to suspend the claimant doctor’s right to make further restoration applications indefinitely. She challenged both the restoration decision and the suspension decision. In May 2023, Linden J dismissed her challenge to the restoration decision but allowed her appeal against the suspension decision. Linden J found that the MPT had erred in relying on emails sent by the claimant doctor to another doctor in 2017 as evidence of dishonesty and had failed to comply with rule 24 of the Fitness to Practise Rules by not giving the claimant doctor the opportunity to provide further representations and evidence.

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The remitted hearing took place in October and December 2023. The MPT concluded that the claimant doctor had not taken responsibility for her clinical deficiencies and had not provided evidence of remediation since the 2022 decision. The Tribunal also found inconsistencies between her written and oral submissions, leading to concerns about her insight into her dishonest behaviour. The MPT decided to suspend indefinitely her right to make further restoration applications. 

The claimant doctor appealed the suspension decision, arguing procedural irregularities and errors in the Tribunal’s evaluation of evidence. The High Court found that the Tribunal had failed to properly reason its decision regarding the inconsistencies in the claimant doctor submissions. As a result, the suspension decision was quashed.

The court decided not to remit the matter to the Tribunal, given the passage of time since the last restoration application. Instead, the suspension order was quashed without further action, allowing the claimant doctor to make a future restoration application if she chooses. The court emphasized that the decision to refuse the 2022 restoration application was correct and properly made.

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