BFUHS, Faridkot asked to redo merit list of PG medical courses: HC

Chandigarh: The Punjab government and Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), Faridkot,were on Wednesday directed by the Punjab High Court to redo the merit list for postgraduate medical course admissions.The court directed them to grant benefit of service in remote areas to rural medical officers working under the panchayati raj department, as well. Calling restricting the granting of incentive for service in remote/ difficult areas only to in-service regular Punjab Civil Medical Services PCMS/ PCMS (dental) doctors –'illegal,' the court stated the same should be granted to rural medical officers, as anything 'otherwise' is to be understood as a violation of the MCI regulation.

The regulations say all doctors in government service were entitled for an incentive marks weight age of 10% (in addition to total marks obtained in NEET-National Eligibility Test) for each year's experience /service in remote and difficult areas, with a maximum of 30% marks for three-year experience/service.

The notice for the holding of the exam in January 2017 was released in October 2016. BFUHS has already completed its first round of counselling between April 13 and 15.

Advocate HC Arora in his statement in court said that the benefit of incentive marks was only given to the PCMS medical/dental doctors by the punjab government and that it has remained silent to granting of incentive marks to doctors seeking admission to PG medical courses in private institutions too.

The bench comprising of Judges Rajesh Bindal and HS Sidhu observed that Punjab government instead of granting incentive on a graded scale in proportion to the length of service, adopts an "all or nothing approach".

"This leaves out of consideration a large section of such in-service doctors who on strength of the regulation may have opted for service in remote/ difficult areas in the expectation of getting the benefit of the incentive," the bench said reports the HT.