Ayurveda doctors not entitled to pay equivalent to MBBS doctors, says Supreme Court

Supreme Court of India on Wednesday said that Ayurveda practicioners are not eligible to receive pay equal to MBBS doctors.

Hyderabad: A Supreme Court bench of Justices V Ramasubramanian and Pankaj Mithal on Wednesday set aside a Gujarat High Court verdict that allowed Ayurveda practitioners to receive equal pay as doctors with MBBS degrees.

The bench was hearing the Gujarat government’s appeal against a 2013 High Court order that had held both Ayurveda doctors and MBBS doctors on the same level. This would allow Ayurveda doctors to receive paid benefits recommended by the Tikku Pay Commission.

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The bench said that it cannot be oblivious to the fact that both categories do not perform equal work to be entitled to equal pay, reported Bar and Bench. However, they did recognise the importance of Ayurvedic doctors and said that alternative systems of medicine should be promoted.

“By the very nature of the science that they practice and with the advancement of science and modern medical technology, the emergency duty that Allopathy doctors are capable of performing and the trauma care that they are capable of providing, cannot be performed by Ayurveda doctors,” the statement read.

Lauding the court’s order, a doctor on Twitter wrote, “It took a verdict from the honorable SC for people to understand the difference between medical science and pseudoscience (sic).”

Social media platforms have been divided over the issue with some welcoming the order and others stressing the importance and the greatness of Ayurvedic medicine.