New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday referred to a larger bench the question of whether doctors practising allopathy and AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy) can be treated alike in terms of service conditions, particularly their age of retirement.
A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Bhushan R. Gavai and justice K. Vinod Chandran said an authoritative pronouncement was required on the issue since past judgments of the top court had taken divergent views. The court was hearing a batch of petitions seeking parity in service conditions between practitioners of modern and traditional systems of medicine.
“We find there is an area of ambiguity insofar as service conditions, especially of retirement age and pay packages, between doctors administering different forms of medical treatment. An authoritative judgment is therefore required,” the bench said, directing the Registry to place the matter before the CJI on the administrative side for constitution of a larger bench.
The bench traced the conflict to two previous judgments — NDMC vs Dr. Ram Naresh Sharma (2021) and State of Gujarat vs Dr. P.A. Bhatt (2023) — which had taken opposing stands on whether AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy) doctors and allopathy practitioners could be classified differently.
In Ram Naresh Sharma, the court had ruled that AYUSH and allopathy doctors could not be distinguished for purposes of retirement age since both “render the very same service to patients.” The judgment had come after the Union Cabinet decided to enhance the retirement age of AYUSH doctors to 65 years, aligning it with that of Central Health Scheme (CHS) medical officers. However, state-specific policies guided the retirement age of AYUSH and allopathy doctors.
{{/usCountry}}In Ram Naresh Sharma, the court had ruled that AYUSH and allopathy doctors could not be distinguished for purposes of retirement age since both “render the very same service to patients.” The judgment had come after the Union Cabinet decided to enhance the retirement age of AYUSH doctors to 65 years, aligning it with that of Central Health Scheme (CHS) medical officers. However, state-specific policies guided the retirement age of AYUSH and allopathy doctors.
{{/usCountry}}However, in Dr. P.A. Bhatt, a coordinate bench drew a distinction between the two streams, holding that differences in qualifications, training, and work profiles justified separate pay scales and service conditions. It noted that allopathy doctors perform emergency treatment, trauma care, and complicated surgical procedures — functions not undertaken by practitioners of indigenous medicine. The court in Bhatt thus concluded that “classification based on educational qualification was not violative of Articles 14 and 16” of the Constitution.
The present bench observed that while allopathy and AYUSH doctors both contribute to public health, they cannot automatically be treated as equals in all respects. “The curriculum leading to the different qualifications, the dissimilar diagnostic methods, contrasting treatment philosophies and the disparate composition of medicines administered set the allopathy doctors apart,” the bench noted, adding that this justified differential service conditions.
At the same time, it said that the ultimate determination of parity must depend on “the identity of functions, similarity in work carried out and comparable duties assigned,” and not merely on the system of medicine practised.
Until the larger bench decides the issue, the Supreme Court allowed states and authorities to continue AYUSH practitioners beyond their present age of superannuation, which is up to the retirement age applicable to allopathy doctors, but without the benefit of full pay and allowances. Such doctors, it said, would be paid half of their pay and allowances, which would later be adjusted depending on the outcome of the reference.
The bench acknowledged that the government’s decision to extend the retirement age of allopathy doctors was driven by “public good” and the “dearth of experienced medical practitioners” in modern medicine. “This concern does not exist to the same extent in indigenous systems of medicine, especially when critical life-saving therapeutic and interventional care is not carried out by such practitioners,” the court observed.
Emphasising that “treatment of unequals as equals” would not be permissible in law, the bench said the question required a definitive ruling “on principle” by a larger bench to bring clarity across states and medical services.