In a major victory for Indian doctors in Britain, the High Court in London has upheld their appeal against a discriminatory government directive that gave preference to British and Europeans over other overseas medicos for recruitment in state-run National Health Service.
A three-member Bench of the court ruled that the order by the Department of Health regarding employment of doctors on the High-Skilled Migrant Programme was not lawful, after a 16-month-long legal battle led by the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin.
Under the directive issued in April last year, there were practically two shortlists of international medical graduates for recruitment -- one of UK and EU citizens and another of Indian and other overseas doctors. The second list would have been considered for jobs not filled by the first list.
This would have affected at least 16,000 overseas doctors, majority of them from India, who may have otherwise been employed if the recruitment had been done on merit, with many having little option but to leave the UK.
A Department of Health spokesperson said the ruling which came on Friday was "disappointing".
"It means we no longer have the option of issuing the guidance for 2008 on which we were consulting that prioritises UK medical school graduates for specialty training posts.
"We face the prospect of a large number of applicants competing for places. Doctors from outside Europe have made and continue to make a huge contribution to the NHS. The issue is not, and never has been, whether they can continue to work as NHS doctors but whether the taxpayer should be investing in training them instead of UK medical graduates."
With the ruling, international medical graduates on the HSMP visa can expect to be treated on merit for the 2008 recruitment process and onwards when they compete with UK and EU citizens for postgraduate training jobs.
The appeal by BAPIO was heard by Lord Justice Sedley, Lord Justice Maurice Kay and Lord Justice Rimer.
"This is a landmark victory for international medical graduates as the court has found not only that the Home Office did not carry out a Race Impact Assessment but also the Department of Health gave incorrect guidance to the NHS employers on the way these doctors are to be treated," said Dr Satheesh Mathew, Vice Chair BAPIO (Operations)
BAPIO, set up in 1998, represented the interests of about 25,000 doctors from the Indian subcontinent who worked in the NHS. It lodged a fresh appeal in March after it lost its earlier case on February 9, despite arguing that it was wrong for Britain to suddenly -- without consultation or warning -- decree that work permit-free visas would no longer be issued to non-European Union doctors.
The legal challenge, which has cost the voluntary organisation an estimated 150,000 pounds, had managed to stave off the complete disenfranchisement of Indian doctors after it secured an emergency court injunction in March to force the health ministry to shortlist non-Europeans for 21,000 jobs.
In August, the British Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights published a report severely criticising the controversial changes to immigration rules for highly-skilled migrants and demanding that the affected Indians and others no longer be left in the lurch.
The report came two months after Britain's race relations watchdog criticised the government's failure "to fully comply with the requirements of the Race Equality Duty" with respect to changes to the HSMP visa scheme.