London, April 30 (PTI): Indian doctors today won a landmark legal battle against the British government when the House of Lords ruled that the state “was wrong” in issuing guidelines discriminating against overseas graduates, mostly Indians, for employment in its health services.

In a 4:1 majority verdict, Britain’s highest judiciary dismissed the government’s appeal against an earlier court decision in favour of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (Bapio).

The association had challenged an April 2006 order to hospital trusts to employ non-EU medicos only if no candidate from the EU was available.

“The department of health was wrong in issuing guidelines in April 2006 discriminating against overseas graduates,” the House of Lords ruled. The Lords committee also awarded costs to Bapio.

Bapio, which had challenged 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, said the ruling had “vindicated” its position that the government had acted in haste.

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

About 7,000 to 8,000 international medical graduates, mostly Indians, will benefit from today’s landmark judgment, Mehta said, adding “we have won with a cost”.

“We expect the government would now treat overseas doctors, particularly Indians, fairly and equally on the basis of merit,” Mehta said.

Indian doctors under the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme were allowed to compete for jobs after the ruling in Bapio’s favour last year, but today’s ruling puts a seal of finality on their employability status.

Indian and other non-EU doctors had found themselves in the lurch when the department of health, faced with a large pool of UK and EU-trained doctors, directed hospital trusts to give preference to EU doctors.

“This will provide much-needed relief to thousands of doctors who have been through unimaginable stress,” said Satheesh Mathew, Bapio vice-chair, adding “many careers have already been destroyed.

“However, this ruling will give hope of fair treatment to the doctors who are still in the UK,” Mathew said.