Ayurveda practitioners not entitled to same pay as MBBS doctors: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court set aside a Gujarat High Court order, holding that Ayurveda practitioners working in government hospitals should be treated at par with doctors holding MBBS degrees and they are entitled to equal pay.

A bench of Justices V Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal said: “Even while recognizing the importance of Ayurveda doctors and the need to promote alternative/indigenous systems of medicine, we cannot be oblivious of the fact that both categories of doctors are certainly not performing equal work to be entitled to equal pay.”

The top court judgment came on a batch of appeals challenging a 2012 Gujarat High Court order, which held that Ayurveda practitioners are entitled to be treated at par with doctors with MBBS degrees.

“We have no doubt that every alternative system of medicine may have its pride of place in history. But today, the practitioners of indigenous systems of medicine do not perform complicated surgical operations. A study of Ayurveda does not authorise them to perform these surgeries,” the Bench said.

Image courtesy of (SAT file photo)

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