The Allahabad High Court has held that doctors who pursue postgraduate medical education at subsidized rates in government institutions remain bound by the mandatory government service requirement attached to their admission. The Court observed that the two-year compulsory government service bond is intended to support the availability of doctors in government hospitals and protect patients' right to life. The Court clarified that a delay by the administration in providing a posting does not, by itself, extinguish the service-bond obligation.

The ruling came while considering a petition filed by a doctor who had completed an MD in Transfusion Medicine from a government medical institution in Lucknow. The doctor argued that the government had failed to provide a posting within three months of completion of the postgraduate course and that the two-year compulsory service bond should…