Delhi High Court
Dr. Nikki Sabherwal And Ors. vs Guru Gobind Singh And Ors. on 20 February, 2007
Author: R Sharma
Bench: R Sharma
JUDGMENT
Rekha Sharma, J.
1. The petitioners are Senior Specialist/Specialist/Consultants in their respective medical disciplines at Safdarjung Hospital and Vardhman Medical College. They are teaching under-graduate and post-graduate students in these hospitals. Their grievance is that many Senior Specialist/Specialist/Consultants in the past have been conferred teaching status by Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in terms of amendment to Regulation 11.1 of the Post Graduate Medical Education Regulation, 2000 while they are being denied the same status. The amendment came into effect on 15.3.2005. It reads as under:
Consultants of specialists who have the experience of working for a period of not less than 18 years and 10 years in the teaching and other general departments in the institutions, hospitals, not attached to any medical college, where with a affiliation from any University, postgraduate teaching is being imparted as contemplated under sub-regulation(1A) of Regulation 8, shall respectively be eligible to be equated as Professor and Associate Professor in the department concerned. The requisite experience for equating a Consultant or Specialist working in the super - specialty departments of the said institutions or hospitals as Professor and Associate Professor shall respectively be 16 years and 8 years. Consultants or a specialists having post-graduate degree qualification, working in such an institution or hospital, who do not have the said period of experience shall be eligible to be equated as Assistant Professor in the department concerned.
2. The aforesaid Regulation has been challenged in a writ petition bearing No. WP(C) 7049/2005 by the Faculty Association of Maulana Azad Medical College, inter-alia, on the ground that non-teaching staff cannot be equated with teaching staff.
3. Although amendment to Regulation No. 11.1 has not been stayed by this Court yet, respondent No. 1, namely, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University has of its own stayed its hands in conferring teaching status any further because, it feels, that the fate of the amendment is in a state of flux.
4. The petitioners in the present writ petition are seeking parity with those Senior Specialist/Specialist/Consultants, who pursuant to the amendment have been accorded teaching status and wants this Court to issue a mandamus to respondent No. 1 directing it to confer similar status to petitioners notwithstanding the pendency of the writ petition No. 7049/2005. It is alleged that respondent No. 1 is discriminating between petitioners and those Senior Specialist/Specialist/Consultants who have already been accorded that status and thus is violating Article 14 of the Constitution.
5. It is not disputed that acting upon the amendment to Regulation 11.1, respondent No. 1 has in the past accorded teaching status to some Senior Specialist/Specialist/Consultants. The question is, should a mandamus be issued to respondent No. 1 to continue doing so notwithstanding that a writ petition challenging the amendment to the Regulation has been filed and its validity is pending consideration before this Court?
6. Here is a case where the respondent has chosen to err on the side of prudence. It feels that when this Court is seized of the matter and has yet to pronounce the final word on the validity of the amendment to Regulation 11.1, it should not proceed further in the matter in terms of the Regulation. I do not think any fault can be found with such a thinking nor can it be said that respondent No. 1 is violating Article 14 of the Constitution. It is not without reason that respondent No. 1 has stayed its hands in acting any further in the matter. It is, as stated above, because of the pendency of the writ petition in this Court.
7. For the foregoing reasons, I am of the view that no mandamus can be issued directing the respondents to accord teaching designation to the petitioner merely because it has so done previously.
8. The writ petition is dismissed.
