Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered for reserving a seat of PG medical course (obstetrics and gynecology) in Government Medical College at Bhopal following a petition by a lady doctor who was denied an incentivised benefit of 30% reservation and 30% incentive marks.
The petitioner, Dr Rajni Shende, had approached the apex court after being declined relief by Madhya Pradesh High Court which she had approached claiming incentivised benefit available to all such in-service doctors who had served the State for a minimum period of 3 years in the interior, remote, rural and difficult areas in the state.
The petitioner said that she had served in the tribal and naxalite hit villages in the state for more than 11 years but she was not given incentivised benefit during the admission in PG course.
Justice Chandrachud heading the apex court bench observed it to be a ‘Hard Case’ which moved the Court sentimentally for giving indulgence in the matter.
The bench directed the State and National Medical Commission to respond by next Monday, April 18. The petitioner was represented through advocate Siddharth R Gupta before the apex court.
Gupta said that the petitioner had worked in the backward tribal areas and naxalite villages of State of MP for more than 11 years, but was denied the benefit of the incentivised reservation and marks only on the ground that her no objection certificate (NOC) by the department was not forwarded in time to the counselling authority but two days before the date of allotment of the 1st round.
The lady doctor had pleaded before the high court that the State Govt gave more 'credence to externals than the essentials' ; and denied her the benefit on the technical ground of late forwarding the NOC by her employer department, for which she was not to be blamed.
The High Court had dismissed the petition holding that the petitioner did not register after procuring NOC from her employer department, Department of Health, which was a prerequisite, for which reason therefore she cannot claim the incentivised benefits available to In-service doctors.
Gupta told the apex court that a technical requirement of NOC cannot come in the way of her claiming of the substantive benefit as the procurement and production of NOC being a mere formality.
The petitioner further pleaded that High Court had erred factually in holding that she was never registered with the State at all, when her registration receipt and allotment letter by the State (albeit as an open category candidate) was on record before the High Court.
