No merit list: Delhi hospitals' SR recruitment violates constitutional rights, UDF moves HC

The United Doctors Front (UDF) has approached the Delhi High Court challenging the centralised recruitment of senior residents (SR) in hospitals under the Government of NCT of Delhi, alleging arbitrariness, lack of transparency, and violation of constitutional rights.

The UDF has filed a writ petition seeking quashing of the results declared on January 5, by the Centralised Recruitment Committee of the Delhi health department, along with the correction notification issued on January 13.

The petitioners said the recruitment process initiated on October 24, 2025, was “structurally opaque and internally inconsistent, constitutionally infirm, resulting in discrimination and unequal treatment in violation of Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India”, which guarantees equality before the law and equality of opportunity in public employment, respectively.

Eligible candidates excluded

Candidates with 9-10 months of ad-hoc senior residency experience and complete documentation were excluded, while candidates with negligible experience — as little as a few days — and without submission of final marksheets were selected, the doctors alleged.

At no stage were interview marks, assessment sheets, or any inter-se merit list disclosed, making the entire selection process unverifiable, and “immune from meaningful scrutiny”, the petition read.

"Despite Senior Residents being the most overworked and underprotected segment of the healthcare system...Sanctioned posts have been left unfilled without justification, merit criteria and interview marks were never disclosed, and post-result reshuffling through corrigenda further exposed systemic flaws," UDF chairperson and national president Dr Lakshya Mittal said.

Modification in eligibility during the process

In the first addendum, the committee modified eligibility conditions, including enhancement of the age limit for certain specialties, provisional eligibility for candidates awaiting results or registration, and substantial revision of vacancy positions across multiple hospitals and specialties.

Further, it revised the vacancy positions in additional hospitals and specialties, reiterating that other conditions of the original notice would remain unchanged. Later, the application deadline was extended due to the relaxation of the eligibility conditions.

Interviews for various specialties were conducted at Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) and associated hospitals from November 28 to December 3, as per schedule issued by the Centralised Recruitment Committee.

The senior residents recruitment results declared on January 5 revealed multiple anomalies, including category-wise errors, non-filling of advertised vacancies, deviation from candidate preferences, and absence of disclosed marks or inter-se-merit ranking, the doctors said.

Vacancies left unfilled, category errors

On January 9, a detailed written representation was submitted by affected candidates to the dean of MAMC, regarding absence of counselling, upgradation, or vacancy-rotation mechanisms. The doctors also highlighted that several sanctioned posts were unfilled without explanation, particularly in departments such as Radiology, Obstetrics, and Gynecology, and Paediatrics, despite the availability of eligible candidates.

Following this, on January 13, the committee revised the merit list rectifying certain category and clerical errors in the results and effecting post-result reshuffling of panels and postings, while leaving core grievances unaddressed, the petition read.

Among the anomalies were category errors, where a general category candidate was initially selected against a Scheduled Caste (SC) seat in the January 5 result data. This was later rectified in the January 13 revised result notification. The doctors called it “a defect so fundamental that it went to the root of reservation compliance”.

“The corrigendum itself exposes the fragility of the selection exercise, as it reflects post-result reshuffling, downward shifting of panels, and provisional selections without any disclosed governing norms,” it said.

The UDF sought quashing of the results declared on January 5 and the revised results on January 13 and directions to conduct a fresh, transparent, and merit-based selection process.