Indian and foreign medical graduates entitled to equal stipend: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court recently said that the foreign medical graduates (FMGs) undergoing compulsory rotating medical internships at various colleges and hospitals across the country are entitled to stipends at par with Indian medical graduates (IMGs) [Abhishek Yadav & Ors. v. Army College of Medical Sciences & Ors.]..A Bench of Justices Aravind Kumar and Vipul M Pancholi granted a final two-week opportunity to various States to disburse all pending stipend amounts to FMGs. The Court warned that it will summon the health secretaries of those State governments which fail to comply with the order..The Court passed the order on September 17 in a batch of petitions highlighting the widespread non-payment and discriminatory disbursal of stipend to FMG interns at government medical colleges and hospitals nationwide..During the hearing, Advocate Tanvi Dubey, appearing for 13 petitioner FMGs, presented a detailed tabular analysis of data extracted from affidavits filed by the National Medical Commission (NMC). It was pointed out that out of 823 medical colleges in the country, the NMC had furnished data for only 443 institutions. Even within that limited dataset, nearly 50 percent of the colleges were not paying any stipend to FMG interns, the Court was told.Advocate Charu Mathur, the nodal counsel in the case, appearing for 3 petitioner FMGs, further brought to the Court's notice that several State medical colleges, while paying regular stipend to IMGs, were denying equal stipend to FMGs despite their identical responsibilities, and duties.The petitioners specifically highlighted the practice in States like Rajasthan, where government medical colleges are paying IMGs a monthly stipend of ₹21,700 while denying it to FMG interns. They alleged that the States ask the FMG interns to give undertakings to waive their right to claim stipend..Taking strong exception to the state of affairs, the Court observed that such discriminatory treatment towards medical interns could not be permitted.During the proceedings, counsel appearing for the State of Gujarat assured the Court that a notification would be issued shortly to release funds for all interns.The counsel for the State of Rajasthan also gave an undertaking that the outstanding stipend amounts would be disbursed within two weeks.