Gauhati HC says similar salaries for Ayurvedic, Allopathic doctors

Gauhati High Court has asked the state government to pay the salary of contractual Ayurvedic doctors at par with the contractual Allopathic Medical Officers of the National Health Mission (NHM).

In line with Supreme Court's judgements earlier in such cases, now Gauhati High Court has asked the Assam government to pay the salary of contractual Ayurvedic doctors at par with the contractual Allopathic Medical Officers of the National Health Mission (NHM) with retrospective effect from December 18, 2018.

The bench of Justice Michael Zothankhuma ordered this by taking into account the order of the Uttarakhand High Court and the Supreme Court's recent order upholding the same to reach this conclusion that the Ayurvedic doctors would have to be treated at par with the Allopathic Medical Officers and Dental Medical Officers under the NHM, as reported by Live Law.

The background of the case

Ayurvedic Doctors' Association and two others had moved to the Gauhati HC and filed a plea advancing their grievance that while the NHM has engaged Allopathic and Ayurvedic doctors under the NHM scheme on a contract basis, the fixed pay given to the Allopathic doctors is higher as compared to the pay given to the Ayurvedic doctors.

Recently, on March 25, Supreme Court had said that both AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) and allopathy doctors working in government hospitals are entitled to equal pay. Moreover, in August last year, the top court of the country had said that no government can discriminate between practitioners of Ayush and Allopathy.

Read more:

• Ayush, Allopathy doctors entitled to equal pay: SC
• Allopathy, AYUSH doctors must get the same pay: SC