Indian doctors win landmark verdict in UK

London, April 30 : Indian doctors fighting for job parity with EU medicos on Wednesday won a landmark verdict against the British Government when the country’s highest court ruled as illegal a state guideline discriminating against overseas medical graduates for employment in state health services. In a four-to-one majority verdict, the Lords Committee dismissed the Government’s appeal against a court order in October last year in favour of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) which had challenged an April 2006 “guideline” to hospital trusts to employ non-EU medicos only if no candidate from EU is available.

The Lords Committee also awarded costs to BAPIO, that spearheaded the legal battle against the Government’s attempt to retrospectively introduce regulations to restrict non-EU doctors already in the UK from applying for training posts in the state-aided National Health Service.

Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Lord Carswell, Lord Mance dismissed the appeal while Lord Scott of Foscote upheld the Government decision.

Soon after the judgement was delivered in the Lords Chamber of the House of Lords, an elated Dr Ramesh Mehta, President of the BAPIO told PTI: “This is a landmark victory. We expect the Health Department would now treat Non-EU overseas doctors fairly and equally on the basis of merit in the case of recruitment to the NHS.”

An estimated 7,000 to 8,000 international medical graduates, a majority of them from India, would benefit from the judgement, he said.

Thousands of international doctors have already left the UK after suffering a traumatic experience.

“The House of Lords has vindicated our position that the Government had acted in haste and prematurely without thinking about the damaging consequences for thousands of international medical graduates,” Mehta said.

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