The Supreme Court noted that the doctors practicing Ayurvedic and indigenous medicine were not doing same work as the allopathic practitioners and thus are not entitled for equal pay.
The Apex Court noted that the emergency duty that Allopathy doctors were capable of performing and the trauma care that they were capable of providing cannot be performed by Ayurved doctors.
It further noted that it is not possible for Ayurvedic doctors to assist surgeons performing complicated surgeries, while MBBS doctors can do the same. In this regard, the Court clarified,“We shall not be understood to mean as though one system of medicine is superior to the other.
It is not our mandate nor within our competence to assess the relative merits of these two systems of medical sciences.”
It added –
“Therefore, we have no doubt that every alternative system of medicine may have its pride of place in history. But today, the practitioners of indigenous systems of medicine do not perform complicated surgical operations.
A study of Ayurveda does not authorise them to perform these surgeries.
The Court noted that the presence of Ayurvedic doctors is not required in a post-mortem or autopsy; during out-patient days (OPD) in general hospitals in cities/towns, MBBS doctors are made to attend to hundreds of patients, which is not the case with Ayurvedic doctors.
A Bench comprising Justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice Pankaj Mithal set aside the Gujarat High Court order holding that practitioners possessing a degree of Bachelor of Ayurved in Medicine and Surgery are to be treated at par with doctors holding MBBS degrees and are entitled to the benefits of the recommendation of the Tikku Pay Commission.