CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ruled that self-financing private medical colleges are liable to pay only the stipend to the in-service government doctors who pursue postgraduation and super-specialty courses in medicine in such colleges and not salary as paid to their peers in the government medical education institutions.
A division bench comprising justices R Subramanian and K Surender issued the ruling recently while partly allowing the writ appeal filed by Karpaga Vinayaga Medical College at Maduranthakam in Chengalpet, challenging a single judge’s order that held that the self-financing colleges are liable to pay salary for the in-service doctors.
The state government had taken a policy decision to not pay salary for the in-service doctors if they pursue PG and super-specialty courses in self-financing medical colleges, and a G.O. was issued in 2020 in this regard. Since then, there have been multiple litigations on the issue.
Disagreeing with the single judge, the bench concluded the in-service doctors are not employees of the private medical college, whereas the in-service doctors who are pursuing PG in government medical colleges continue to be in the service of the government.
“So, the status of in-service doctors in a private medical institution is only that of a PG student and nothing more. If that be so, they can only be treated on par with the other PG students in the same institution, and they would be entitled to whatever remuneration that is being paid to other PG students in the same institution,” the bench said in the order. It held that in view of Regulation 13.3 of the Post-Graduate Medical Education Rules (PGMER), they would be entitled to the stipend.
Ruling that the liability is on the self-financing institution to pay remuneration to in-service doctors who pursue their higher education, the bench held they would be liable to pay only the stipend as fixed by the state.
“The in-service doctors, who pursue their higher education in private medical colleges cannot claim salary from such institutions on par with their more meritorious counterparts who pursue higher education in government medical colleges,” the bench concluded.
Advocate General PS Raman appeared for the government, while advocate Abishek Jenasenan appeared for the appellant-medical college.
The appellant filed the appeal against the 2024 order of the single judge who held that the salary for the in-service PG, super-specialty, broad-specialty and PG diploma in self-financing colleges be paid by such colleges.