An Indian doctor was forced to return from the US after the centre refused to issue him a no-obligation to return to India (NORI) certificate, following its change in guidelines, reported The Times of India.
He has moved the Bombay High Court challenging the health ministry’s decision. His petition claims that the Centre’s decision “lacks any application of mind.”
Dr Sunil Noothi, was working as a biomedical researcher with the University of Kentucky’s department of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics since August 2013. He had to return to India on 28 December, 2015, as the US Department of Homeland Security required a NORI certificate.
He has been rendered unemployed in India as he is “under a confidentiality and intellectual property protection agreement and cannot undertake the same research elsewhere.”
Noothi was issued No Objection Certificates (NOCs) by both the Karnataka government and the Mumbai Regional Passport Office. However, the Union Human Resource and Health Ministry departments refused to pay heed to his plea, as did the Prime Minister’s Office in June.
Defending its decision, the health ministry said that no NORI certificate was being issued since August 2011, except to applicants aged 65 and above to tackle “the severe shortage of public health professionals in India.”
Noothi argues that NORI certificates were being issued when he left for the US, which implies that a policy created after his move cannot be applicable to him.
Earlier in April, Dr Sagar Mundada, president of the Central Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors, had moved the Aurangabad bench to challenge the anti-NORI policy introduced in 2014. Calling it retrograde, he said that it would have a grievous impact on doctors living in the US who have finished their higher medical studies there.
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