A pair of doctors acquitted in court of gang sexual assault now may have to face their regulatory body to answer allegations of “disgraceful, dishonourable or unprofessional conduct.”

In a 2014 high-profile case, Drs. Suganthan Kayilasanathan and Amitabh Chauhan were found not guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting a medical student in a Sheraton Hotel room after a night of drinking and dancing in a Toronto club in 2011.

The judge said she wasn’t satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt the 23-year-old woman was drugged and didn’t consent to sex.

The lawyers for the two doctors are now arguing their clients’ disciplinary hearing at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) should be thrown out before it begins in May.

They brought forward a motion calling for the dismissal to the college’s discipline committee, arguing that pursuing the case is an “abuse of process.”

“We have already made the same arguments, there should be no repetition,” Andrew Parley, one of several lawyers for Kayilasanathan — who didn’t attend the pre-hearing Monday — told the college’s panel.

“We are here with the same allegations, with the prosecutor inducing on the same evidence. It is impermissible to raise the same issue that has already been decided.”

A separate disciplinary hearing is scheduled for Kayilasanathan at the college in November for additional allegations of sexually abusing a patient in December 2010 “by engaging in sexual intercourse or other forms of physical sexual relations and/or touching of a sexual nature and/or behaviour or remarks of a sexual nature,” according to a notice of hearing from the CPSO.

The defence lawyers said “re-litigation” would drag their clients’ reputations through the mud again.

Hamilton doctor Chauhan wore a grey suit and lavender shirt while appearing to listen intently to the proceedings.

One of his lawyers, David Porter, argued that using evidence found inadmissible in criminal court at the discipline hearing would be an abuse of process.

But Carolyn Silver, prosecutor for the CPSO, said the committee should move forward because the criminal trials differ from disciplinary hearings.

“The trial judge made it very clear in her reasons that the acquittal had not meant the two physicians had not engaged in the conduct,” she said. “Or that they were innocent or that they had not behaved in a morally reprehensible way.”

The committee reserved its decision.

jyuen@postmedia.com