Ayurvedic doctors holding BAMS degree cannot claim the same salary as doctors holding MBBS degree --Supreme Court

The Supreme Court, while setting aside a judgment given by the Gujarat High Court in 2012, has said that Ayurvedic doctors cannot claim to be paid at par with allopathic doctors.Because Ayurvedic doctors with BAMS degree do not do the same work as allopathic doctors with MBBS degree.                                                             The Gujarat High Court, in a judgment delivered in 2012, said that Ayurvedic doctors holding BAMS degree and Allopathic doctors holding MBBS degree should be treated equally and Ayurvedic doctors working in government service also have the right to get the same salary as allopathic doctors.                                    This decision of the Gujarat High Court came after the recommendations of the Tikku Commission.The commission was created in 1990 to improve the condition of doctors working in government service .The Tikku Commission had recommended that the doctors of other systems of medicine working in the government service should be given the same salary as the allopathic doctors.                                                                         The Supreme Court said that it is not advocating the superiority of any one system of medicine, even though alternative systems of medicine have been glorified in history. But in modern times doctors of alternative medicine can neither do surgery nor are they able to cooperate in surgery Whereas MBBS doctors are able to perform and assist in surgeries. Regarding the equality between the two classes of doctors, the Supreme Court said that doctors of Ayurvedic medicine cannot perform complex surgical operations.The degree of Ayurvedic doctors does not allow them to do so, along with this the court said that Ayurvedic doctors cannot even do post-mortem.                                                                         The conclusion of the Supreme Court rests on the fact that both categories of doctors are not doing equal work for equal pay.It is further clarified that Allopathy doctors are competent in emergency duty and trauma care, whereas Ayurvedic doctors cannot do this.MBBS doctors in government hospitals in villages and towns treat hundreds of patients daily in OPD while Ayurvedic doctors do not do the same.                                      Recognizing the importance of other systems of medicine, a division bench of Justice V Ramasubramaniam and Justice Pankaj Mittal said that We should not forget the fact that doctors of Ayurvedic system of medicine are not doing same work to get equal pay so cannot claim to get same pay as MBBS doctors.