- (1.) ALL these four writ petitions have been filed by the Doctors working as Civil Assistant Surgeons (CAS) in the Government of Rajasthan as members of the Rajasthan Medical & Health Service under Rules of 1963. ALL these Doctors are desirous of the selection for the Post Graduate i. e. MD/ms Courses conducted by the University of Rajasthan and to appear in Pre-P. G. Examination for that purpose as against the seats reserved under Clause (c) (for in service CAS Candidates) of the Ordinance 278-E of the University of Rajasthan which lays down : " (I) Total Number of Seats (II) Reservations. (III) Selection of Candidates. (IV) Eligibility for Admission. "
(2.) THE Writ Petition No. 1270 of 1993 has been jointly filed by 9 Doctors viz. Dr. Anil Nair, Dr. Ramesh Sharma, Dr. Subhash Bansal, Dr. Sandeep Sharma, Dr. Rahul Saini, Dr. Shrawan Chopra, Dr. Mahesh Chand Singhal, Dr. Ashok Kumar Jain & Dr. Mahesh Kumar Goyal. The Writ Petition No. 1338 of 93 has been filed by Dr. Surendra Kumar Garg. The Writ Petition No. 1502 of 93 has been filed by Dr. Moti Asnani and Dr. Kishore Kumar Tanwani. The Writ Petition No 1545 of 93 has been filed by Dr. Suresh Garg and Dr. Rajendra Kumar Agrawal. All these petitioners through these four writ petitions based on identical facts have raised common grievance involving the common question of law for consideration and, therefore, all these four writ petitions are being decided by this common judgment and order.
(3.) ACCORDING to the averments made by the petitioners, all these petitioners are working as CAS Doctors in the service of Government of Rajasthan under the Rajasthan Medical & Health Service Rules, 1963 and all of them have been selected by the RPSC. Their grievance is that their candidature is not being entertained for the Pre-Graduate Entrance Examination for MS/md Courses/post Graduate Courses against the quota reserved for in service Doctors on account of the provisions contained in Ordinance 278-E of the University of Rajasthan and hence they have sought a declaration that the Ordinance 278-E of the University of Rajasthan be declared to be ultra vires of Articles 14 & 16 of the Constitution of India so far as it requires 5 years' experience of working as CAS Doctors after selection through RPSC. The grievance of the petitioners is that they have 5 years' experience of working as CAS although, they don't have such experience for a period of 5 years' after selection through RPSC The relevant portion of Ordinance 278-E of the University of Rajasthan he purpose of the case at hand are reproduced as under : - "o. 278-E (I) Total Number of Seats. Total number of seats subject-wise for various post-graduate courses of M. D. and M. S. will be as notified by the Principals/head of the respective institution. (II) Reservations. (c) 25% of the seats, after excluding the seats to be filled in as per allocations made by the Director General of Health Services, Govt. of India, New Delhi as mentioned in clause (a) above, shall be reserved for inservice candidates of Rajasthan State Medical Serviced in the various specialities as determined and fixed from time to time by the State Government out of which 8% seats shall be reserved for inservice natural born scheduled caste candidates and 6% for natural born scheduled tribe candidates. The State Government shall communicate such numbers of seats speciality wise to the Principals of the respective Medical Colleges. The remaining seats shall be called 'general Seats' and the unfilled seats from those reserved under Clauses (a), (b) and (c) above after exhausting the waiting list, shall be filled by the candidates of general category. (III) Selection of Candidates. (IV) Eligibility for Admission. All candidates seeking admission to M. D. and M. S. Courses should have obtained registration i. e. they must have completed satisfactorily one year's compulsory rotating internship after passing the final M. B. , B. S. examination and must have registration with the Rajasthan Medical Council. Further, (ii) For seats reserved for inservice candidates as referred for clause II (c) the candidates must have served the State i. e. the Government of Rajasthan continuously for more than 5 years after regular appointment under Rajasthan Medical and Health Services, Rules, 1963 and should be below the age of 45 years and should have completed at least 3 years of service in the rural area of the State of Rajasthan Rural area is defined as a Rural area where Rural allowance is admissible to the doctors and should have actually served in the rural area. " Mr. K. K. Sharma, Advocate and Mr. Arjun Karnani, Advocate appearing for the petitioners have raised the following contentions: - 1) There is no qualitative difference in the experience gained by a Civil Assistant Surgeon prior to his selection by the RPSC and, thereafter, as required under Ordinance 278-E Clause IV (ii) that the candidates must have served the State i. e. Government of Rajasthan continuously for more than 5 years after regular appointment under the Rajasthan Medical & Health Service Rules, 1963 is, therefore, unreasonable, irrational and arbitrary and that it has no nexus to the object sought to be achieved. 2) RPSC does not hold the selections regularly and, therefore, the requirement of 5 years' service after regular appointment under Rajasthan Medical & Health Service Rules, 1963 should not be made a condition of eligibility. 3) The selection for MS/md/post Graduate Courses are essentially and eventually made on the basis of merit in the Pre-P. G. Examination and, therefore, inservice CAS Doctors should not be denied the right to compete in this selection on the ground that they do not have more than 5 years' service to their credit after regular appointment under the Rajasthan Medical & Health Service Rules, 1963. 4) That the provisions as contained in the Ordinance 278-E were introduced way back in the year 1988 but in the past years i. e. 1989, 1990, 1991 and 1992 the requirement of more than 5 years service after regular appointment was not pressed and in order to aggregate the 5 years' service even the service rendered prior to selection by RPSC as CAS was counted and it is for the first time in the year 1993, that this requirement is being pressed although, such requirement under Ordinance 278-E was existing in the same form in the past year that is from 1989 to 1992 and hence petitioners are being subjected to discrimination. 5) Ordinance 278-E itself is arbitrary, unreasonable and ultra vires of Article 14 & 16 of the Constitution of India in so far as it requires 5 years' service after regular appointment under Rajasthan Medical & Health Service Rules, 1963. 6) Ancillary argument was also raised that the requirement of 3 years of service in the Rural areas is also being insisted to be in addition to the requirement of 5 years service after regular appointment and thus the total number of required years of service comes out to be 8 years which is unreasonable and wrong. The respondents have traversed the petitioner's claim in the reply filed through Shri Y. C. Sharma, Advocate who has submitted on behalf of the University of Rajasthan that the challenge to Ordinance 278-E (4) (ii) is not sustainable because the service rendered on ad hoc basis cannot be treated at par with the services rendered after the regular recruitment and the criteria prescribed under Ordinance 278-E laying down the requirement of 5 years of service after regular appointment cannot be said to be arbitrary or discriminatory. What class of inservice Doctors should be allowed to compete against the reserved seats and what should be the conditions of eligibility for such inservice CAS Doctors is a matter of policy which has been reflected in Ordinance 278-E and, therefore, the grievance of discrimination is wholly unfounded. ;