New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from the Centre and others on a plea over the non-payment of emoluments to the resident doctors pursuing PG diploma courses across employees’ state insurance corporation hospitals and colleges.

A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Ahsanuddin Amanullah issued notice to the Centre and others on the plea.

The petition, which also raised the issue of disparities in the stipends, said the aggrieved doctors include those enrolled in a post-MBBS diploma, Diplomate of National Board (DNB), post-diploma DNB and Doctorate of National Board (DrNB).

The petition, filed by advocate Tanvi Dubey, said the doctors challenged the “unjust and arbitrary act” of discrimination between the post-graduate diploma resident doctors and doctorate of medicine (MD) and master of surgery (MS) students at ESIC colleges and hospitals.

“The usual expenses of the DNB candidates are almost similar to that of MD/MS or any other candidates. However, it is appalling to note that the DNB candidates are not getting any kind of allowances unlike the MD/MS candidates,” the petition said.

The plea said doctors were aggrieved by the arbitrary and unjust actions of the respondents due to the payment of a lower stipend amount without allowances.

The respondents in the matter are the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment, National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences, the director general of ESIC and ESIC hospitals in Delhi, Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Gujarat.