The Bombay High Court has upheld a new rule which makes it mandatory for MBBS graduates to execute indemnity bond of Rs five lakh to ensure that they serve in a public hospital for one year after graduation.
A division Bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice D G Karnik dismissed five petitions challenging the rule, filed by more than 150 students who had taken admission in 2004-05 and 2005-06, yesterday.
Apart from seeking a bond, the new rule also demands an undertaking from MBBS graduates that they will not leave India for five years after acquiring the degree.
The students had claimed that the new rule did not apply to them, as it came into existence in 2007.
Their lawyers, V M Thorat and Pooja Thorat, also argued that at the time of their admission, these students were made to sign another bond saying that they would have to pay Rs 1 lakh in case they failed to serve in a public hospital for a year.
But government counsel Dhairyasheel Nalavade argued that at the time of counselling (prior to grant of admission) these students had been informed that they will have to execute indemnity bonds as per the rules of the colleges where they were taking admission.
