NEW DELHI: Can practitioners of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) seek parity in pay scales, service conditions and retirement age with MBBS doctors?Given the conflicting judicial decisions on the issue of parity, a two-judge bench of Chief Justice B R Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran has referred the matter, a source of perennial conflict between AYUSH and MBBS doctors, to a larger bench for an authoritative pronouncement.The bench said, “There is an area of ambiguity insofar as service conditions, especially of retirement age and the pay packages, with reference to the doctors administering different forms of medical treatment, evaluated for the purposes of parity, should be ideally considered, according to us, on the touchstone of, identity of functions, similarity in work carried out and comparable duties assigned.”It said the claim for parity will have to be decided taking into consideration the qualifications acquired, the treatment practices, the functions, work and duties of practitioners of traditional medicine systems, among other discernible features.Distinguishing AYUSH practitioners from MBBS doctors, the bench said, “It is the MBBS doctors, the allopathy practitioners, who are dealing with critical care, immediate lifesaving measures, invasive procedures, including surgeries and even postmortem; none of which can be carried out by any of the practitioners of indigenous systems of medicine.”The order came on a petition filed by Rajasthan, which through solicitor general Tushar Mehta said the state had brought different retirement ages for AYUSH and MBBS doctors to subserve public good and to address the dearth of adequate number of allopathy doctors. Referring to a previous decision, the CJI-led bench said, “It is common knowledge that the footfalls in allopathy institutions are far more than in the institutions administering the indigenous system of medicine… Further, casualty, critical care, trauma management and the emergency interventional procedures are dealt with by allopathy doctors and not by AYUSH doctors.“These aspects, according to us, put the former (MBBS doctors) in a different class altogether, who can be classified differently for service conditions. This has a reasonable nexus with the object sought to be achieved: the sufficiency of qualified and experienced MBBS doctors with better pay scales and longer service, both,” it said.“We are of the opinion that there should be an authoritative pronouncement on the issue, and hence we refer the matter to a larger bench. The Registry is directed to place the matter before the CJI on the administrative side,” the court said. Go to Source
