Latest news with #NNagaresh
Time of India
4 days ago
- Health
- Time of India
Kerala HC sets aside state govt order stipulating internship fee for foreign medical graduates
Kochi: High court has set aside the state govt's order stipulating an internship fee for foreign medical graduates (FMGs). The bench of Justice N Nagaresh further observed that, as the National Medical Commission (NMC) Act mandates stipend payment to medical interns for their service, the state is not justified in levying an internship fee from medical graduates. The Court was considering a batch of petitions filed by FMGs challenging the GO dated April 3, 2025, issued by the health department additional secretary, which directed them to pay Rs 5,000 per month as an internship fee for the Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship (CRMI). The petitioners, who secured medical degrees from institutions outside India, contended that the NMC, which has the power under the Act to make policy regarding the internship, provides no option for the state to levy any fee for CRMI and had already directed that no such fee should be charged. The state opposed the arguments and submitted that the NMC cannot restrain state govts from levying an internship fee on Indian or foreign medical graduates. In 2020, the state had fixed the internship fee at Rs 10,000 per month for FMGs, and, in view of directions from a HC division bench in a previous petition, the govt had refixed the fee at Rs 5,000 per month. Meanwhile, the NMC clarified that it had taken a policy decision directing that no internship fee shall be collected from students undergoing CRMI. Accordingly, HC set aside the impugned GO mandating the internship fee for FMGs.
Time of India
30-04-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Sales executives can also invoke provisions of Industrial Disputes Act for redressal of grievances, rules Kerala high court
Kochi: Sales promotion employees, even if not classified as 'workmen' under the Industrial Disputes Act, are entitled to invoke the provisions of the Act for the redressal of their grievances, the high court has held. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Justice N Nagaresh issued the ruling while allowing a petition filed by the All-India Sales Representatives and Marketing Employees Federation challenging the decision of the regional labour commissioner, Kochi, to close a petition filed by them regarding a dispute over the transfer of employees of an insurance company. The Federation, a trade union, had previously approached the labour commissioner, challenging the action of the insurance company in transferring all workers who were members of the petitioner union from Kozhikode to various distant parts of the country. However, the labour commissioner closed the petition, holding that sales and marketing personnel were not 'workmen' as defined under Section 2(s) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. This prompted the Federation to approach HC. Opposing the petition, the insurance company contended that the transferred employees were managers and that the transfers were necessitated by the closure of certain branches. It argued that an industrial dispute would not lie as the employees were not 'workmen' under the Act. It was also contended that the petitioner union was not a registered trade union and, therefore, could not raise a dispute under the Industrial Disputes Act. The petitioners, however, argued that although they were designated as sales managers, they were not performing managerial functions and were, in fact, ordinary sales promotion employees. They submitted that merely being described as managers could not exclude them from the purview of the Industrial Disputes Act. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Citing a previous HC judgment, the single bench held that although sales promotion employees may not fall within the definition of 'workmen,' the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act are nevertheless applicable to them. The court further held that the sponsoring union need not be a registered trade union for a dispute to qualify as an industrial dispute. Accordingly, the court set aside the labour commissioner's order and directed that the petition be reconsidered on its merits.
