No Equal Stipends For PG Ayurveda and Allopathy Students: SC Rules [Read Judgment]

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has said Post Graduate Ayurveda students would not be entitled to equal stipend as they do not perform same duties as that Allopathy students.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and Sandeep Mehta allowed an appeal filed by the Madhya Pradesh government, noting the High Court's order of November 19, 2019 as "not sustainable in law".

Questioning validity of the HC's order, Madhya Pradesh's Additional Advocate General Saurabh Mishra said the issue is no longer res integra.  

He said the Supreme Court in the case of State of Gujarat and others Vs Dr P A Bhatt and others, last year had held, duties discharged by the Post Graduate students in Ayurveda stream cannot be equated with the duties discharged by the Post Graduate students in Allopathy stream.

"As a matter of fact, subsequently, there has been a revision of stipend paid to both the streams and there is not much of a difference in the stipend paid to the Post Graduate students in both the streams," he said.

A counsel for Ayurveda students led by Vijay Kumar Tiwari and others who filed the writ petition before the HC, said no interference was warranted with the judgment and order. He contended the stand taken by the state government was found as not tenable by the High Court.

The Ayurveda students had claimed, they were discriminated against in the matter of stipend, even though the duties discharged by them were same as compared to the duties by the Post Graduate students belonging to the Allopathy stream.

Agreeing with the state counsel's stand, the bench relied upon its 2023 judgment, which stated "Even while recognising the importance of Ayurved doctors and the need to promote alternative or indigenous systems of medicine, we cannot be oblivious of the fact that both categories of doctors are certainly not performing equal work to be entitled to equal pay".

The bench declared the HC's judgment and order would not be sustainable in view of the specific findings of this court that the nature of duties discharged by the Post Graduate students in Ayurveda stream is not the same as that of Post Graduate students in Allopathy stream.

[Read Judgment]