Challenging the decision of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences to reserve 50 percent seats in the hospital's super-speciality departments, four resident doctors from the institute have moved the Delhi High Court and sought its intervention in the matter.

Justice Kailash Gambhir issued noticed to AIIMS, Medical Council of India and the Centre on a petition filed by the doctors -- Dharmesh L Khatri, Prashant, Nidhi Moda and Pankaj Khandelwal -- and directed AIIMS not to release the appointment letters to the selected candidates for reserved category till the pendency of this case.

Justice Gambhir, however, declined to stay the Recruitment Policy, 2005 for the post of senior resident doctors in the super-speciality departments of the Institute.

Filing the petition through their counsel M L Lahoty, the petitioners stated that they had qualified through the merit list for three-year-long tenure post of senior resident doctors. Two super-speciality departments requiring candidates for these posts were orthopaedics and gynaecology, they added. 

Three of them had figured in the various merit lists of the Orthopaedic Department and the name of the other figured in the department of gynaecology.

However, AIIMS, in disregard to the Supreme Court guidelines, had decided to allot two seats out of three from orthopaedic department and three out of four in gynaecology department to the candidates from backward classes, the petitioners said.

They alleged that the illegal procedure would lower the academic standards as the reservation was done on a 'floating basis'.

The Court fixed February 13 as the date for further hearing of the matter.