Woman doc gets Madras high court relief for her PG course study

Chennai: The Madras high court has directed authorities to grant benefits to a woman doctor by counting the period of her study of PG course between 2011 and 2014 as service for all purposes and grant full pay and allowances for the said period.

Allowing the petition by Dr Elamathi Bose, Justice V. Parthiban said it is open to the government to impose reasonable conditions like assurance from the petitioner to serve in the government till she attained superannuation.

 According to petitioner, while she was working under the directoror of public health and preventive medicine, since she could not get a seat either in government institutions or in any surrendered seats in self-financing colleges, she joined PG  course for three years in MD (anatomy) in a private deemed university, namely Sree Meenakshi medical college and sent a letter to the DMS to grant special leave under extraordinary circumstances to pursue PG course. In response, the government also granted permission to her. After completing her PG, the government on the basis of her intention, posted her as tutor/assistant professor of anatomy at Madras Medical College.

She sent representations to the authorities to pay full pay and allowances for the period of PG course study. As there was no response, she filed the present petition. Resisting her claim, additional advocate general Narmada Sampath submitted that since the petitioner could not secure the seat either in the government institution or in the surrendered seats of the self financing colleges under the single window system because of her lower merit, she cannot seek parity in treatment for grant of full pay and allowances.

  The judge said although stiff resistance has been put up on behalf of the government that the candidates who secured their PG degrees through private deemed universities, were not entitled to be granted full pay and allowances, yet, such resistance becomes irrelevant on the basis of the fact that ultimately, the candidate, namely, the petitioner acquired specialized knowledge in anatomy by successfully completing her MD (anatomy) and was re-employed in government service.

In this case, the petitioner has been serving the government even after her PG, and was willing to abide by any reasonable conditions to be imposed by the government. “Since the petitioner is willing to put use of her specialized knowledge acquired through the PG degree, in discharge of her public duty, her claim in the opinion of this court cannot be treated differently on the specious plea that she has undertaken the course in a private deemed university and not selected through single window system,” the judge added.