Thiruvananthapuram
In what could have significant implications for MBBS interns across the country, the Supreme Court’s intervention has resulted in a Delhi-based private medical college agreeing before the apex court that it will pay its MBBS interns stipend on par with what is paid to students in government medical colleges.
In response to an interim order by the Supreme Court (issued after a student took the stipend issue to the apex court), Army College of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, on October 16, filed an affidavit before the court that it has paid all its 105 students ₹25,000 each as stipend on September 30 and that henceforth too it will continue to make these payments every month.
The issue of lack of parity in stipend of medicos in government medical colleges and their counterparts in private medical colleges has been alive since 2017.
Despite pressure from students and activists demanding parity in stipend of both PG medicos as well as MBBS interns, neither the former Medical Council of India (MCI) nor the current apex medical education regulatory body, National Medical Commission (NMC), has ever given a clear directive to private medical colleges that they have to mandatorily pay a fair stipend to medicos.
Last year, an MBBS intern in Army College of Medical Sciences approached the Supreme Court complaining that none of the 100 MBBS interns in the college were being paid any stipend.
In its interim order on September 15 this year, the Supreme Court noted that the interns are required to be paid a stipend during the period of internship and that the mandate of the regulations adopted by the NMC cannot be breached.
It directed that “commencing from October 1, 2023 the first respondent shall pay a stipend of ₹25,000 per month to each of the present batch of interns and continue to do so on a monthly basis”.
The Supreme Court order said the stipend amount was fixed with “due regard to the fact that an amount of ₹27,000 was paid as stipend at Vardhman Mahavir Medical College (Safdarjung Hospital, a govt institution), ₹25,000 per month at the Babasaheb Ambedkar Medical College (which is a private college) and an amount of ₹24,000 per month at the NDMC Medical College (Hindu Rao Hospital), which again is a government medical college”.
The Supreme Court then asked counsel for the NMC to file a tabulated chart and explain if this statement was correct what steps the National Medical Commission was taking to ensure compliance with the norms for payment of internship stipends.
On October 16, counsel for the first respondent (Army College of Medical Sciences) stated in the Supreme Court that in compliance with the apex court’s interim order, an amount of ₹25,000 per month was being paid to the current batch of interns and a total amount of ₹26.25 lakh for 105 students was paid on September 30, 2023.
He further stated that the college would continue to make the payment to all interns of the current batch from month to month.
“The matter of private medical colleges paying no stipend at all or paying a paltry amount, much less than what is received by their counterparts in government medical colleges, has come before the medical education regulatory authorities several times since 2017. Yet all this time, the authorities just dragged their feet over it, never telling the private college managements that they cannot violate the regulations which are applicable to all medical colleges nation-wide. This is the first time that the matter is being raised before the Supreme Court and we are so glad that the apex court has immediately recognised that the interns have to be given a fair deal,” K.V Babu, a public health and RTI activist, who has been relentlessly pursuing the stipend issue on behalf of medical students, said.
The apex court’s intervention settled the matter of stipend for MBBS interns and the Supreme Court directive was applicable to all private medical college managements across the country, he said.
“Students can cite the Supreme Court order and approach the judiciary if they are denied stipend or paid less than a fair amount,” said Dr. Babu.
It may be recalled that in August 2017, the executive body of the MCI had washed its hands off the stipend issue claiming that “the issue is beyond the purview of MCI”.
In 2019, the Board of Governors, in supersession of MCI, proposed to amend the provisions in the Regulations on Graduate Medical Education, 1997, that “all candidates pursuing rotating internship at the institution from which MBBS course was completed, shall be paid stipend on par with the stipend being paid to the interns of State/Central governemnt medical institution in the State / Union Territory where the institution is located.” But this was never gazetted.
In 2021, the NMC chose to draft a vague regulation, that “all interns shall be paid stipend as fixed by the appropriate fee fixation authority as applicable to the institution/ university/State”. This gave ample opportunity for private college managements to deny stipend to students.
