The Delhi high court on Friday said the MBBS degrees distributed recently by All India Institute of Medical Sciences administration would be valid despite the fact that they did not contain the requisite signatures of the institution's president and dean.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice M K Sharma and Justice Veena Birbal said, "We do not know whether there is any dispute in AIIMS or not. But these students who are innocent should not suffer because of all these things."

Putting a stamp of its approval on the degrees, the court said it will address reservations of Health Minister and AIIMS president Anbumani Ramadoss and its dean of academics later during the hearing.

Meanwhile, the certificates issued by the AIIMS could be used by the students, the court added.

The significant observation came during the hearing on the petition filed by some resident doctors of the premier institution who had got certain apprehensions about the validity of the degrees, which did not contain all requisite signatures of four authorities.

Mukta Gupta, appearing for the dean, academics, for the institution said, "The certificate were not valid ones and we are not going to put our signatures on them."

The bench took strong note of her statement and said the future of innocent students should be protected.

The court, however, allowed the submissions of AIIMS president and Health Minister Ramadoss and dean academics that they would issue separate certificates to the students.

The court would hear the matter on Monday.