Even as the Supreme Court is hearing a plea to bring parity in the stipends paid to MBBS interns, a group of 13 medical students have moved the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court, seeking payment on par with government hospitals.
After hearing the plea on Thursday, a bench of justices Nitin Sambare and Abhay Mantri issued notices to the college, the state government as well as the National Medical Commission (NMC). Advocate Ashwin Deshpande represented the petitioners.
The petitioners, who are doing the year-long compulsory rotatory residential internship at NKP Salve Institute of Medical Sciences and Lata Mangeshkar Hospital, Nagpur, claimed that they are paid a mere Rs4,000 monthly stipend, while their counterparts in government colleges draw Rs18,000. The students also alleged that while their institute, in its submission to the fee regulating authority, has shown allocating an amount of Rs5,454 towards stipend, they have only received Rs1,467, so far.
The petitioners pointed out that there is no amount fixed for medicos at private colleges and hospitals even as the state government in February stipulated that the interns at government-run institutes are to be paid Rs18,000. The plea relies on an interim SC order, issued in October 2023, directing the Army College of Medical Sciences in New Delhi to pay Rs25,000 per month to its MBBS interns. It also cites a 2021 NMC regulation that stipulates, “all interns shall be paid stipend as fixed by the appropriate fee fixation authority as applicable to the institution/ university/state”.
