HP High Court: Order to Terminate Services of Doctors Pursuing PG Against Rules Upheld

June 4, 2026

The Himachal Pradesh High Court has upheld the State Government’s order to terminate the services of contractual Medical Officers in the Health Department and to recover the financial benefits extended to them.

Dismissing the petitions filed by the petitioners, the bench of Justice Jia Lal Bhardwaj observed that the continuation of any benefits obtained in violation of the rules and the terms stipulated in the prospectus cannot be permitted.

The Court clarified that the selection was made under the Direct Quota, and since there were no seats reserved for in-service candidates within the Department of Anesthesiology, the doctors ought to have resigned prior to securing admission.

Addressing the doctors’ contention that the Department had extended similar benefits to certain other doctors, the Court remarked that if an unlawful act or error had been committed by the State Government in the past, one cannot claim the repetition of that same error as a matter of right. Since the doctors themselves had acknowledged in their responses to the notices that they did not fulfill the requisite conditions—and the facts were unambiguous—there was no necessity for a separate, protracted inquiry.

The Court further clarified that the Government is not invalidating the doctors’ MD degrees, but is merely terminating their government service in their capacity as Medical Officers. The Court declared the recovery and termination actions initiated by the Government to be entirely lawful.