SC reserves order on pleas related to parity between 'allopathic' and AYUSH practitioners

New Delhi, Oct 13 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its order on pleas seeking answer to whether there can be different age of superannuation for doctors practising modern medicine from the practitioners of AYUSH (Ayurveda, yoga, naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and homeopathy) in government hospitals and clinics.

A bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran was hearing as many as 31 petitions on the issue and heard many lawyers, including Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Rajasthan government, and Ashwini Upadhyaya, who represented a few ayurvedic practitioners.

On May 3 last year, the bench had agreed to examine the issue.

The solicitor general said that the retirement age of "allopathic" doctors were raised from 60 to 62 years by certain state governments keeping in mind the paucity of such practitioners and others also seek parity in salaries and in the age of superannuation.

The bench said it will take a decision whether the issue can be referred to a larger bench.

Updhyayay said that his client may get retired in the meantime and moreover, the issue is already decided and the Ayush practitioners have to be treated equally like "allopathic" doctors.

"If you succeed then you will get back wages that too without working," the CJI said while reserving the order.

Earlier, the Rajasthan government took note of the shortage of "allopathic" doctors and enhanced their age of retirement from 60 to 62 years with effect from March 31, 2016.

The decision led to litigations by similarly placed government AYUSH doctors.

The Rajasthan High Court, on February 28, rendered a judgement accepting the grievances of the ayurvedic doctors and held they will be deemed to be in service up to the age of 62 years if their date of retirement fell after March 31, 2016.

"Those who have been superannuated on attaining the age of 60 years, but have not completed the age of 62 years, be reinstated in service forthwith," the high court held.

The state government appealed in the top court and urged the bench that the order be stayed.

"Why should we be interfering with this," the bench had then observed.

However, later the bench agreed to consider the appeal of the state government after taking note of the submissions of Mehta.

The law officer said around 1,000 such doctors will come back to service due to the effect of the high court verdict.

"We will issue notice," the bench said.

The high court had allowed the plea of the AYUSH doctors that the different age of superannuation was discriminatory as being violative of Article 14 (right to equality) of the Constitution.

The AYUSH doctors submitted that they are performing the same function of treating and healing their patients and hence, the classification is discriminatory and unreasonable.

The state government, on the other hand, had submitted before the high court that since there is shortage of allopathic doctors serving under it, a decision was taken to raise the retirement age of allopathic doctors from 60 years to 62 years.

However, since there was a large number of AYUSH doctors serving with the state government, a similar raising of retirement age for AYUSH doctors was not considered necessary by the government, the state government had said. PTI SJK VN VN