Kerala High Court calls idle bonded medical postgraduates a national waste

The Kerala High Court has directed the Kerala government to decide on a proposal to create supernumerary Senior Resident posts for 23 medical postgraduates awaiting bonded service appointments. Justice Viju Abraham was considering petitions by the postgraduates, who had completed courses at government medical colleges and were required to serve for one year in the Medical Education Service. They challenged the compulsory bonds and argued that the service period should begin when results were published rather than when they joined a post.

The petitioners also challenged the delay in their appointments, sought the release of their original certificates and asked the government to publish a transparent vacancy list. They proposed a time-bound mechanism for allocating postings. The court found that the students had remained without postings for almost eight months after publication of their results.

Their certificates were retained by the Directorate of Medical Education until the bond period ended, preventing them from working in other hospitals. The court described the students’ inactivity as a “national waste”. The High Court upheld the requirement that postgraduates execute a bond to serve in government medical colleges.

However, it ruled that the one-year Senior Residency obligation must be counted from the date results are published, even if a posting is not immediately available. The state attributed the delay to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which created an overlap between two batches eligible for compulsory service. It told the court that almost 1,000 postgraduates had completed their courses, while only 600 Senior Resident vacancies were available.

The government said that students who were not appointed within a year would be released from the bond. It also informed the court that the Directorate had proposed creating supernumerary posts for the petitioners. The state must now decide on that proposal.