Dr. Sunil Noothi was working as a researcher and not as a physician, claims suit.
By Sreekanth A. Nair
A doctor who lost his job in the US after the Government of India refused to issue him a no-obligation to return to India (NORI) certificate, following a policy change, has filed a petition in the Bombay High Court challenging the decision of the government.
Dr. Sunil Noothi, who had been working as a biomedical researcher with the University of Kentucky since August 2013, had to return to India on December 28, 2015, after he failed to submit the NORI certificate to the US Department of Homeland Security.
Doctors wishing to go abroad for higher education and work need to apply for NORI from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to settle down and work abroad. But, considering the severe shortage of doctors in India, the government decided not to issue NORI certificate to medical professionals and graduates, except to applicants aged 65 and above, since 2011.
Though the Karnataka government and the Mumbai Regional Passport Office issued Dr. Sunil Noothi NOCs, the Ministry of Human Resource Development and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare rejected his application citing the policy change.
He applied for the certificate last February. But the health ministry didn’t respond to his application and he returned to India in December. In March this year, the ministry replied him that it cannot issue him a NORI certificate.
Though he met Union minister Venkaiah Naidu and other MPs last month, his effort didn’t succeed. On May 23 he received another letter from the health ministry repeating the same reason. Later he approached the Prime Minister’s Office and got the same reply.
Noothi is saying that the center’s decision lacks any application of mind. The rule is applicable only to practicing doctors. But he does not practice medicine. Though he holds an MBBS degree from a Bangalore college, he did a Ph.D. from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 2008 and started working as an analyst. Later he went to the US in 2011 to work on a research project.
He told The Times of India that he “under a confidentiality and intellectual property protection agreement and cannot undertake the same research elsewhere” and cannot continue his research anywhere else and so he is now unemployed in India.
The high court said on Thursday that the case will be heard later. Noothi’s lawyer Rahul Totala has filed an application before the court to consider the case along with another NORI case pending before the Aurangabad bench.
1 Comment
Not offering any jobs to doctors while forcing them to stay in India, depriving them of professional opportunity and livelihood is a breach of their human rights.