Pay stipend, can’t treat foreign medical grads differently, orders SC

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 2

Noting that foreign medical graduates can’t be treated differently, the Supreme Court has said that they should be paid stipend during their internship like their counterparts who obtained their MBBS from medical colleges in India.

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A Bench led by Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia on Monday asked the National Medical Commission (NMC) to produce details of Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government Medical College, Vidisha; Dr Laxminarayan Pandey Government Medical College, Ratlam, and Employees State Insurance Corporation Medical College, Alwar, with status of payment of stipend to foreign medical graduates.

The top court warned the colleges against non-compliance of its earlier order on payment of stipend. “The medical colleges cannot treat MBBS and foreign medical graduates differently,” it said, adding it was paramount that stipend was paid.

The direction came after petitioners’ counsel Tanvi Dubey submitted that foreign medical graduates in certain medical colleges were not being paid stipends during their internships.

The Supreme Court had on January 23 issued notice to the National Medical Commission (NMC) and a Madhya Pradesh-based government medical college on a petition filed by five foreign medical graduates complaining about non-payment of stipend during their internship. The petitioners demanded that they should be treated on a par with those who did MBBS from medical colleges in India. Their counsel had submitted that they were being deprived of their rightful claim to monthly stipend even when the notification issued by the NMC stated that they should be treated on a par with Indian medical graduates.

The petitioners have sought directions to the NMC and others to determine the stipend to be paid to such students for the entire period of their internship as per the standards followed by other medical colleges in terms of the November 17, 2022, notice of the Government Medical Education Department of Madhya Pradesh, which provided for a stipend of Rs 12,760 to interns with effect from April 1, 2022.

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