Plea To Extend Cut-Off Date To Consider Experience Of Service In Government Hospitals Of Remote And Difficult Areas: SC Asks Petitioners To Approach Concerned Authorities

Giving liberty to them to submit a representation to the concerned authorities, the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to interfere on the plea of 3 doctors for a direction to extend the September 30, 2021 cut-off to consider their experience of service in Government hospitals of remote and difficult areas.The petitioners are doctors serving in the Rajasthan state services. They have been posted in remote or difficult areas or rural areas. The state policy recognises graded incentive marks for such doctors for the purpose of giving admissions in postgraduate medical courses. The state government has framed a policy for granting incentive marks to in-service doctors posted in difficult, remote and rural areas under which for every completed year of service 10% marks would be added in the tally of candidates scored in the NEET examination with the ceiling of 30% marks weightage which may be made available. Such experience has to be reckoned as gained by them upto 30.09.2021 for the current process of admissions in PG medical courses.The bench of Justices D. Y. Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath was hearing the SLPs against the January 25 decision of the Division Bench at the Jaipur seat of the Rajasthan High Court and the January 28 order of the Division Bench of the Rajasthan High Court at its principal seat at Jodhpur, both holding that the cut-off date requires no interference.The division bench at the Jaipur seat had expressed as follows, "Ordinarily such experience would be considered upto 30th April of the relevant year. Initially in the present admission process also the cut off date prescribed by the State Government was 30.04.2021. However initially on account of the spread of coronavirus the conducting of NEET examination itself had to be postponed. The examination could be completed only on 11.09.2021. Even thereafter the counselling could not start on account of legal controversies regarding reservations provided in PG medical courses. The State Government taking cognizance of such developments has on its own extended the time limit from 30.04.2021 to 30.09.2021. In our view the same is principally a matter of policy and depends on the discretionary exercise of powers of the State Government. To begin with grant of incentive itself is a policy matter and based on the discretion of State authorities. Any extension for considering the experience is also part of such discretionary exercise of the powers. Unless it is shown that such discretion is exercised arbitrarily or malafidely this Court would not interfere in such policy matters. Moreover, as correctly pointed out by the counsel for NMC, the policy of the State is to grant incentive. No candidate has a vested right to claim such incentives, that too dehors the State policy. Such cut off date cannot be kept fluctuating. The date of counselling would depend on several factors. The suggestion that experience gained by the candidate right till the first date of counseling is therefore not acceptable. There is yet another angle to this issue. The perusal of the State policy would show that the incentive is granted to ensure that sufficient numbers of doctors are available to serve in remote, difficult and rural areas. On account of difficult living conditions in such areas these doctors would also suffer a degree of handicap in their preparations of PG medical entrance examinations. To offset such handicap incentive is being offered. Once examination is over, the candidate cannot complain of being disadvantaged in making the preparations as compared to the other candidates. The cut off date of 30.09.2021 prescribed by the State Government therefore requires no interference."The coordinate bench at the principal seat at Jodhpur reiterated this view.On Thursday, the bench of Justices Chandrachud, Surya Kant and Vikram Nath observed that having heard Mr Manan Verma, counsel appearing for the petitioners, with Mr Siddharth Bhatia, "we do not consider it appropriate, considering conventional yardsticks and precedents governing the subject matter, for this court to exercise its discretion and extend the cut-off date of 30 September 2021."The bench further opined, "Any cut-off date is bound to cause some hardship and the court would be treading in the area of policy if it were to issue a judicial fiat for the extension of the cut-off date."However, the bench noted, "At the same time, the learned counsel for the petitioners however submitted that the three petitioners are the only candidates, and all the other members of the batch would be entitled to the 10% weightage which was prescribed for in-service candidates, save and except for the petitioners, who would risk losing the benefit because their appointments took place on 5 October 2018.""Hence, the hardship which has been pleaded is that the petitioners would lose out only because of the fact that they would be five days beyond the cut-off. On this aspect, particularly having regard to the...

Plea To Extend Cut-Off Date To Consider Experience Of Service In Government Hospitals Of Remote And Difficult Areas: SC Asks Petitioners To Approach Concerned Authorities

Mehal Jain

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