The Telangana High Court on Friday rejected a writ petition filed by doctors doing their postgraduate (PG) medical courses who claimed exemption from serving the government after completing their PG courses.
The petitioners were accepted into the PG programme in 2019 after they signed bonds promising to work for the Telangana government for a year following the successful completion of their individual postgraduate programmes.
The petitioners said that though Telangana Medical Practitioners Registration (Amendment Act, 2013) making rural medical services mandatory for them to register their names with the Telangana State Medical Council, another amendment to the Act in 2018 waived the obligations for providing rural medical care. They argued that even though they had signed the bonds in 2019, they had to be exempted from performing the rural service requirement.
The State however argued that the changes to the Telangana Medical Practitioners Registration Act, 1968, do not in any way affect the state’s ability to require rural service as a condition of residency and that the aforementioned Act only pertains to doctor registrations and not PG study.
The State relied on both the current regulations governing PG studies and the Supreme Court ruling in Association of Medical Super Specialty Aspirants and Residents vs Union of India and Others. The apex court supported the ability of several states to require bonds for mandatory service in the aforementioned judgment.
Justice Mummineni Sudeer Kumar rejected the argument and supported the State’s position while also taking into account that over 890 applicants reported to work in rural regions and that just seven petitioners had appeared before the court.