PG MED ADMISSIONS

No incentive mark during maternity leave: HC

TIMES NEWS NETWORK   04.04.2018

Chennai: Maternity leave availed of by an in-service candidate can be treated as ‘service period’ for the purpose of admission to Tamil Nadu postgraduate medical courses, but incentive marks for serving in remote, hilly and difficult areas cannot be granted to them without doing ‘actual service’, the Madras high court has said.

Justice S Vaidyanathan made the decision and directed the registry to place the issue before the Chief Justice to refer it to a division bench, as his decision was in contrary to an order already passed by another single judge in a similar plea. The judge passed the order on Tuesday on a batch of pleas moved by seven lady doctors, who are in-service candidates, seeking to treat the maternity leave and earned leave availed of by them, as service period. When the plea came up for hearing, additional advocate-general S T S Moorthy submitted that the government was considering maternity leave as service period for all other contingencies, including promotion, except in admissions to PG medical course.

“The government has provided all the benefits under maternity leave, including pay for the leave period. But when it comes to admissions to PG medical courses, the leave period cannot be considered as service period, since the candidate must have completed two years of service,” Moorthy said.

Opposing the submission, advocate Richardson Wilson said, “When maternity leave is a constitutional right, the state cannot deny it to the petitioner.” As to the incentive marks, Moorthy submitted that without actual service such marks cannot be awarded to the petitioner.

To this, Wilson said when the government had not mentioned anything about such a rule, either in the prospectus to the courses or in the government order granting such incentives, such restriction could not be imposed.

Wondering whether granting such incentive marks without actual service would amount to discrimination against men, who do not get any benefits like paternity leave, the judge said such incentives could not be awarded to candidates without actual service.