An illustrious decision taken by House of Lords, sent relief among thousands of Indian doctors in UK, as it rejected government’s appeal against High Court’s ruling in which it had earlier ruled out the new scheme that preference should be given to European medics.
House of Lords quashed the appeal and hailed the guidelines as illegitimate and unfair on government’s part.
This judgement which came by a 4-1 majority will guard thousands of Indian Medical professionals who went to UK under Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP).
British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) fought the legal battle against the guidance of the government that would have affected more than 10,000 medical professionals if that would have come into effect.
Dr Ramesh Mehta, president of BAPIO said, “The House of Lords has vindicated our position that the government had acted in haste and prematurely without thinking through the damaging consequences for thousands of international medical graduates that it’s retrospectively applied unfair regulations were likely to impose.”
“What this means for those doctors who are already in England, who we estimate to be about 7000-8000 on Highly Skilled Migrant Programme visas will now be able to apply for the training post, they will be treated fairly and on the basis of merit,” he added.
But for those who want to apply in UK the new points-based immigration system has been made tougher from this year and accordingly new medical graduates from India can apply only for non-training posts.
In 2006 the government advised the National Health Service that only in case of unavailability of suitable UK or EU candidate, the non EU postgraduate doctors will be given training.
The government suffered the setback in on April 08 in which the High Court ruled against the new ruling. The judgement hailed that the old rules should be honored for those immigrants who are already in the UK and that it is unreasonable to seize the benefits offered to them originally against the argument of the government that old criteria were not enough for the selection.
The Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) introduced in January 2002 has many guidelines to attract skilled professionals. The scheme was a point based system under which the immigrants seeking UK visa had to score enough points based on criteria like age, qualification, salary, UK experience and UK study. Also, they were provisionally granted entry for a year, with eligibility for a two-year extension and then a further three years before allowing them for final settlement.
The HSMP included highly skilled Indians but the changes that was of major concern to them was that the requirements to pass the test were increased for those who wanted to extend their visa in 2006.
The changes created flutter among those who wanted to stay there but felt restricted under government’s new law, then the HSMP Forum appealed against government immigration law.
Now, since the judgement has come from the highest court – House of Lords, the Indian doctors in UK are capable of competing for the job with their UK and EU counterparts equally.
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