SC Sets Aside Punjab And Haryana High Court’s Direction Recasting The Merit List For Admission To Postgraduate Medical Courses [Read Judgment]

 The Supreme Court’s Vacation Bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and Navin Sinha, on Thursday, directed the Punjab Government to reconsider the incentive to be given to the Rural Medical Officers afresh by keeping in mind the objective with which the Regulation 9 of the Medical Council of India Regulations  2000 were made.

The Supreme Court, in State of UP v Dinesh Singh Chauhan, (2016) had interpreted the above Regulation to mean assigning specified marks commensurate with the length of service rendered by the candidate in notified remote and difficult areas in the State, linked to the marks obtained in NEET, for admission to the Post Graduate Degree Courses.

Authored by Justice Rao, Thursday’s judgment of the Supreme Court found force in the  State Government’s contention that Rural Medical Officers cannot claim parity with PCMS doctors.

Disagreeing with the High Court, the bench held that the Regulation 9 is an enabling provision, and the State Government has the liberty to provide for weightage in the marks to in-service doctors who have served in remote and difficult areas.  “There is no right which inheres in the government doctors to compel the State Government for providing the incentive”, the bench held.

The bench, however, refused to interfere with the admissions made to the PG courses for this year, and therefore, did not deem it necessary to decide the other two points pertaining to the applicability of the incentive to Private Medical Colleges and the validity of prescribing the minimum service in the remote/difficult areas as eligibilitiy criteria.

The bench directed the concerned authorities to proceed with the second counselling on the basis of the notification dated 29.03.17 and finalise the process of admission before 31.05.17.

Read the Judgment here.