The state government is yet to fill up the posts of assistant professors in the three state-run medical colleges due to legal tangles over fixing of senior residents having postgraduate degree with three years experience as the eligibility criteria.
The three state-run medical colleges are the SCB Medical College in Cuttack, VSS Medical College in Burla and the MKCG Medical College in Berhampur.
In 2008, the state government created the posts of senior residents tutors for the first time in Odisha. In 2009, senior residents were appointed for the first time in the state and declared as the faculty for undergoing training in teaching and treatment.
The government also enacted a legislation, the Odisha Medical Education Service Rules, 2009, which specifies that senior residents having postgraduate degree with three years experience would only be eligible for the post of assistant professors.
However, for the past four years, it has not been able to fill up 193 such posts, as legal dispute over the eligibility criteria has dragged on first in the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT), and then, in Orissa High Court. No resident doctors from the three government medical colleges in the state were eligible for the post due to the criteria. As the state government had introduced the senior resident post in 2009, no doctors completed three years in the post by the time advertisements were issued for recruitment of the assistant professors.
The Odisha Public Service Commission had issued advertisements, inviting applications for 120 posts and 73 posts on August 17, 2010 and December 9, 2011, respectively. But, the recruitment has been held up as SAT had quashed both the advertisements after 67 doctors had filed petitions and challenged it.
As things stand today, petitions, filed by 27 doctors challenging the SAT order, are pending in the high court.
The state government has also filed an affidavit, seeking quashing of the tribunal order.
The division bench of Chief Justice Amitava Roy and Justice A.K. Rath has posted the matter for further hearing to February 19.
The state government has claimed before the high court that it has come to its notice that "quite good number of postgraduates from our state having three years experience as senior residents tutors from MCI-recognised institutions of the country are working at various places in India".
"So, this is an opportunity to invite good meritorious doctors to the state facing paucity of faculties," health department deputy secretary Sibo Narayan Sahu said in an affidavit, adding "the government has sympathy for the senior residents now engaged in our colleges".
In the affidavit, Sahu also said: "The state government is not closing the doors for ever for the present senior residents. They will be definitely eligible for appearing in the examination for the post of assistant professor after two years when the state goes for the next recruitment."
The tribunal had ruled that the advertisements, for that matter the OMES Rules, 2009, are not in conformity with the Medical Council of India (MCI) guidelines, which stipulates three years teaching experience as resident and not only senior resident.
The state government, in its affidavit, however, has contended: "The tribunal did not consider the submission of the state that the large number of vacancies in the cadre of assistant professor in the three medical colleges has not only affected the patient care, but also led to the de-recognition of undergraduate seats increased from 150 to 250 of three medical colleges."
