A vacation bench of the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on October 12 directed the Tamil Nadu government to respond with regard to the implementation of the recommendations made by a committee for granting incentive marks to a section of in-service doctors during post graduate medical course admission.
The bench comprising Justice TV Thamilselvi gave the direction on a joint petition filed by three doctors from Ramanathapuram district challenging the recent PG medical admission prospectus as far as the denial of incentive marks to doctors - who are working in the Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care service (CEmONC) centre - is concerned.
According to the petition, a committee formed two years ago under retired High Court judge Justice A Selvam had recommended that incentive marks should be provided to in-service candidates who are working in the CEmONC centre during admission to post graduate degree or diploma courses considering the difficult nature of their work.
However, without implementing the said recommendation, the government has published the admission prospectus for 2021-2022 post graduate medical course admission on October 6. 2021, they claimed. "The government itself had appointed us in the CEmONC centre and when we are not in a position to work in remote or rural areas, the government's decision to provide incentive marks only to in-service candidates working in remote and rural areas is discriminatory," the petitioners stated.
They requested the court to direct the authorities to grant them incentive marks.Justice Thamilselvi issued notice to the State Health Secretary among others and directed them to respond with regard to the steps taken to implement the committee's recommendations. The case hearing was adjourned to October 21.
