Order tomorrow on incentive marks to in-service PG candidates

The Madras High Court is to deliver its verdict tomorrow on a plea to fix norms on the incentive marks to the doctors in government services for admission to the post-graduate medical courses in Tamil Nadu.
A vacation bench of justices K K Sasidharan and S M Subramanian, specially set up to hear the matter, reserved its order after hearing arguments on the appeals by in-service candidates challenging a single judge's ruling on the matter.
The bench reserved the order after hearing for the arguments by senior counsel P Wilson, who appeared for various in-service candidates, Additional Advocate General Mani Shanker for the state government and senior counsel Vijay Narain on behalf of the Medical Council of India.

The bench was set up by Chief Justice Indira Banerjee in view of the urgency of the matter.
The appellants had challenged the single judge's April 17 order upholding the MCI norms that the incentive marks for in-service candidates should be awarded only on as per the MCI's Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations 2000 and not on the basis of the state government's norms.
As per the state norms, all doctors in the government service are eligible for one mark per year of the service with a cap of 10 marks, while those employed in four notified difficult and remote or hilly areas were eligible for two marks per year of the service.

But the MCI regulations earmarked 10 per cent of an in- service candidate's National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) PG mark as incentive per year of service with a maximum of 30 per cent.

The government today submitted that the award of the incentive marks to the service candidates was being made for the past 35 years to encourage doctors to serve people in remote, hilly and difficult areas and was not violative of MCI norms.
If this was withdrawn, it would be difficult to run the government hospitals and primary health centres, the AAG said.
Wilson submitted that the state prospectus was approved by the MCI and the Central government and they can't take a U-turn now and say it was not as per the MCI regulations.