PG Medical admission row: Sureties from 2 govt officers challenged

The vacation division bench comprising Justice S Vaidyanathan and Justice Subramonium Prasad before whom the plea came up for hearing on Wednesday ordered notice to the State government represented by its Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department and the Director of Medical Education returnable by April 15.

The petitioner T K Saravanan, practicing law for the past eight years, submitted that to ensure that the services of trained postgraduate doctors are made available an undertaking is obtained from them at the time of their admission to discourage the attitude of the candidates who are unwilling to serve the rural poor.

Based on this, the prospectus requires two sureties from permanent government employees while executing a bond of Rs 20 lakh on admission to post graduate diploma courses and Rs 40 lakh on admission to Post Graduate degree courses in Tamil Nadu Government Medical Colleges and Government seats in self-financing medical colleges affiliated to Dr M G R Medical University and Rajah Muthiah Medical college affiliated to Annamalai University.

Further, submitting that while the rank list is based on marks obtained in NEET PG 2019, the plea said there could be no objection for execution of bond by the candidate as such. But the condition that candidate should execute a bond with two sureties from permanent government employee in the same or higher rank than the candidate is unreasonable, irrational and unfair, the plea said.

Most of the students who are economically disadvantaged or otherwise and do not have easy access to government officials cannot dream of getting such sureties. It casts an unnecessary burden more particularly on the parents and students belonging to economically and socially backward. Moreover, taking advantage of the arbitrary, unfair and unreasonable condition the government officials demand hefty amount for signing as surety, the plea added.