Top Court dismisses PG medical students’ plea, says impossible to determine ‘reasonable time’ for postponement of exams
The Supreme Court today disposed of the plea filed by a group of Post Graduate medical resident doctors seeking various reliefs with regards to PG Medical Exam in view of CoVID pandemic.
Vacation bench of Justice MR Shah and Justice Indra Banerjee while disposing of the plea observed that, “There is no question of passing orders as National Medical Commission has granted liberty to Universities to decide time taking into consideration pandemic in their area.”
The Court also said that, “Mr Hegde has stated that some directions may be issued so concerned medical students are given reasonable time. It is not possible for the court to say what that reasonable time would be.”
Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde appeared for final year doctors.
Senior Advocate Hegde while submitting that the petitioners are medical doctors who attend their duty in CoVID wards wearing PPE kits everyday requested for National Medical Commission to consider directing the universities to conduct the exam at a later date within a reasonable time.
“We're being put in a situation to choose between two really hard situations. We'll either have to give up our duties & prepare for the exam or give up on our dreams.”, Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde further argued.
To this Justice Indira Banerjee said, “How can we pass a general order when there are so many universities in the country? We cannot interfere in view of this. We can only say that the concerned university can decide.”
Justice Banerjee also said, “What might be reasonable for one person might not be reasonable for the other. It varies from person to person. The time that Justice Shah requires for the exam might be 15 days & for me might be 150 days. The situation of #covid throughout the country is not the same at all times. Today we don't have many cases in Delhi as compared to the cases we had in April & May. But in Karnataka, there might be more cases.”
Advocate Gaurav Sharma appearing for National Medical Commission informed the bench that various universities across the country conducted the exam as per their own schedule.
Earlier the while expressing its non inclination with regards to the prayer for waiver of final year PG exams had issued notice to the Centre and National Medical Commission in the other reliefs sought in the plea for promoting the petitioners as senior residents and post doctoral students upon completion of the scheduled tenure of two or three years along with pay scale and other allowances and for constitution of a joint expert committee for examining and recommendation the prayers sought by the final year doctors.
Case Title: Shashidhar A & Ors v. Union of India|W.P.(C) No. 631/2021