The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that in-service doctors need not have rendered two years’ service in rural, remote or difficult areas as a pre-condition for admission to postgraduate medical courses against up to 40 per cent of Haryana’s state-quota seats set apart for in-service doctors after noting that the state policy requires such doctors to execute a bond to serve in such areas for five years after acquiring the postgraduate qualification.The judgment came on a petition by qualified MBBS doctors challenging Haryana’s policy for the 2024-25 academic session. The petitioners were seeking directions to Haryana and other respondents to restrict the admission against 40 per cent seats for in-service candidates only to those who had already rendered two years’ service in the rural/remote/difficult areas in the state.The Court rejected the challenge, holding that Haryana was constitutionally competent to create a separate channel of admission for its in-service doctors and that the policy’s classification had a rational nexus with the objective of strengthening medical services in rural and difficult areas.The petitioners, MBBS doctors registered with their respective State Medical Councils and eligible to practise medicine, were seeking admission to MD/MS and other postgraduate medical courses in government, government-aided and private medical institutions in Haryana against state-quota seats.Their principal grievance was that the 40 per cent in-service channel should be available only to doctors who had already completed two years of rural, remote or difficult-area service in Haryana. They challenged the September 2, 2024, notification insofar as it permitted other eligible in-service doctors to compete for the in-service seats without having completed that prior rural/remote service.At the onset, the Bench asserted that the admissions for the 2024-25 session had already concluded, but “similar policies have been framed in subsequent years as well and therefore, the issues being recurring in nature require appropriate adjudication by this Court.”The Court did not accept the petitioners’ contention that the existence of a separate in-service channel necessarily meant that every doctor seeking admission through it must first complete two years of rural/remote/difficult-area service.“Providing of health services to the citizenry in the state is one of the important functions assigned to the state government. The state, therefore, would be well within its jurisdiction to take measures consistent with the object of providing improved medical facilities in the rural areas by posting specialized doctors who have higher qualifications,” the Bench observed.It added that the state, by framing its policy, intended to ensure that the MBBS doctors employed by it were provided higher qualification so that they were better equipped to provide improved medical facilities in the rural areas.“The policy contemplates furnishing of a bond by such in-service doctors to render minimum five-year service in rural/difficult areas and thereby ensure that purpose for which the policy is framed is duly sub-served,” the Bench added.The court was also of the view that the state’s wisdom in specifying the manner of offering admission to in-service doctors could not be objected to by the petitioners, unless it was shown that the impugned policy itself contravened any constitutional provision, or was manifestly arbitrary or unjust“The notification issued by the state categorically provides that such in-service doctors would have to execute a bond undertaking to serve the state government for five years in rural/remote/difficult areas after acquiring such postgraduate qualification. The object of the state policy is to provide better medical facilities to the common masses in the state. Such objective is adequately achieved by the doctors executing the requisite bond to serve in such rural/remote/difficult areas for a period of five years,” the Bench observed.The court added the state policy also carved out a distinction between in-service doctors who had completed two years of posting in rural/remote/difficult areas and those who had not done so.“Those who have actually worked in rural/remote/difficult areas for two years have been allowed to pursue postgraduate courses as in-service doctors with full salary along with all other available service benefits. However, those in-service doctors who have not rendered service in rural/remote/difficult areas have been denied salary during the period of their postgraduate study, and the benefit to them is restricted to providing of lien and counting of services, etc., without any salary to them,” the Bench addedThe Court held that the distinction was based on an intelligible differentia and had a rational nexus with the objective of “providing of improved medical facilities in rural/difficult areas.” It consequently held that the distinction was, thus, valid and did not contravene Article 14 of the Constitution of India.”Dismissing the petition, the Bench held it did not find the notification to be either beyond the state’s legislative competence or encroaching upon the field occupied by the Central legislation.“The policy contained in the notification dated September 2, 2024, is held not to violate Article 254 of the Constitution of India. We also do not find the State policy to contravene any provision of the Constitution of India or any applicable statute, or to be manifestly arbitrary so as to justify any interference by this Court in exercise of its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India,” the Bench concluded.