Allopathy, AYUSH doctors must get the same pay: SC

On Tuesday, Supreme Court said that no government can discriminate between practitioners of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) and allopathy. The court directed the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) to pay AYUSH practitioners equivalent salaries as given to allopathy doctors as per the Central Health Scheme.

Furthermore, a bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and L N Rao said that if NDMC has implemented central government direction of increasing the retirement age of allopathic practitioners to 65 years, it cannot deny the AYUSH practitioners of the same benefit.

NDMC said that the classification of doctors under Central Health Services (CHS) under different categories and AYUSH doctors was reasonable and permissible in law. However, the court was not convinced and rejected the argument. The bench said, "This however does not appeal to us and we are inclined to agree with the findings of the Tribunal and the Delhi High Court that the classification is discriminatory and unreasonable since doctors under both segments are performing the same function of treating and healing their patients."

The bench also added that the difference lies only that the AYUSH doctors use indigenous systems of medicine like Unani, Ayurveda, etc and CHS doctors are using allopathy for treating patients. Such unreasonable discrimination and classification based on it would surely be inconsistent with Article 14 of the Constitution.

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