Madras High Court dismisses pleas challenging TN government order reserving PG medical seats for in-service doctors

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday dismissed a bunch of petitions challenging a Tamil Nadu (TN) Government Order (GO) which provided reservation benefits to 'in-service' doctors in post graduate medical admissions in State run medical institutes [Dr A Packia Raj v State of Tamil Nadu]..Justice GR Swaminathan found merit in the State's submission and held that the issue did not warrant any interference by the court."Following a decision of the Supreme Court, it was held that the State does have power to provide for a separate quota for in-service doctors, as a separate source of entry in medical education, while filling up Postgraduate seats in medical education, from within the State quota," noted the bench.The petitioners were four doctors, who alleged that the implementation of the GO had an "arbitrary, unreasonable, and disproportionate" effect..The GO which was issued on November 7, 2020, reserves 50 percent seats for in-service doctors for admissions to post graduate medical courses in government run and self-financed health institutions across the state. The GO also permitted in-service doctors to simultaneously apply through the general category.In-service doctors are medical professionals who have already served on government posts, worked in rural areas, in any other government hospitals and health centres..The petitioners submitted in court the data they had received in response to queries filed by them under the Right to Information Act. As per the replies, for the Postgraduate degree/Diploma courses in Government Medical colleges in the state, 294 non-service doctors and 859 in-service doctors were allotted seats during counselling in the academic year of 2021-2022.The petitioners said that they had contrasted the above figures with that of the preceding three years, 2018-2019, 2019-2020, and 2020-2021 and following the reservation policy, the in-service doctors had "unreasonable and disproportionate" benefits..Additional Advocate General J Ravindran, who appeared for the State government opposed the pleas. He argued that the pleas were not maintainable since the Supreme Court in March 2022, and a division bench of the High court in January, 2022 had passed previous orders saying that the state had the power to provide for such reservation..The bench, on hearing the parties, refused to go into the merits of such figures and pointed out that in its January 27 order, the division bench of the High Court had refused to intervene in the issue on the ground that the GO was a new one and enough time had not passed for one to test the pros or cons of such reservation in seats for in service doctors."The Division Bench wanted to see how the implementation would pan out in future. Therefore, the data collected in respect of the first year of the implementation of the policy cannot be the basis for maintaining this petition. The liberty granted by the Division Bench can be invoked only if the petitioners can show a pattern of disproportionate impact," observed the bench..Advocate Suhirth Parthasarathy represented the petitioners..[Read Order]