Calcutta: The high court on Friday stayed the Bengal government's practice of making postgraduate medical students sign a bond agreeing to pay up to Rs 30 lakh if they refuse to serve in the state for a certain number of years after completing their courses.

Justice I.P. Mukerji, who stayed the practice, also barred the government from issuing any order on the matter till it hears a contempt case filed by 146 postgraduate doctors.

A West Bengal Health University rule states that doctors enrolling on MD/MS courses have to sign a bond agreeing to pay Rs 30 lakh if they fail to serve at least three years in the state after completing their courses. Those enrolling on postgraduate diploma courses have to work at least five years in Bengal, failing which they have to pay Rs 20 lakh.

A few weeks back, a doctor from Madhya Pradesh who had completed a postgraduate diploma course in psychiatry from SSKM Hospital last year had moved the high court saying the government was refusing to release him even after he had paid Rs 20 lakh.

The government released the doctor, Rahul Bansal, only after a high court order.

The health university had in June 2014 issued a notification fixing the bond amount for both categories of students - postgraduate and postgraduate diploma - at Rs 10 lakh. They were required to pay the money if they refused to work in the state for at least a year.

The next year, the bond amount was increased to Rs 20 lakh and the mandatory period of service for postgraduate students to two years and postgraduate diploma students to three years.

On November 3, 2017, the university issued a third notification increasing the bond amount of MD/MS students to Rs 30 lakh and the mandatory service period to three years. The bond amount of the diploma students remained unchanged but the mandatory service period became five years.

"Following a petition filed by 146 doctors, Justice Mukerji had on November 8 described the notification unconstitutional. He said the bond amount should not exceed Rs 10 lakh and the service period one year," said Pratik Dhar, the lawyer appearing for the doctors. "My clients moved the contempt petition as the health department did not comply with the verdict."

Government pleader Abhratosh Majumdar submitted on Friday that the department had moved an appeal before a division bench against Justice Mukerji's order. Dhar replied that the division bench had not stayed the single-judge bench's order.

Justice Mukerji stayed the notification and asked the principal secretary and the secretary of the health department and the director of health service to file affidavits within two weeks stating why contempt proceedings should not be drawn against them.

The matter will be heard again on July 28.