The period of applicability of the bond conditions will be co-terminus with the period of two years from the date a candidate successfully passes out the course.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, praying for issuance of a Writ of Mandamus directing the respondents to return the original certificates of the petitioners collected by the 3rd respondent at the time of their admission.)

Common Order:

1. The issue raised in these writ petitions since is common, with the consent of the learned counsel appearing for both sides, all these writ petitions were heard together and are disposed by this common order.

2. These petitioners after having completed the UG degree course in Medicine, subsequently, on selection, were admitted in respective P.G. Degree courses or P.G. Diploma courses at the respondents Institutions.

3. At the time of admitting in P.G. Degree courses or P.G. Diploma courses, they were asked to execute a bond under which inter alia one of the important condition is that, these students after completing either the P.G. Degree courses or P.G. Diploma courses have to serve for the Government/Government Institutions/Hospitals for a period of two years after they successfully completed their respective P.G. Degree courses or P.G. Diploma courses as the case may be.

4. Accordingly, these petitioners have completed their respective P.G. Degree courses or P.G. Diploma courses from the year 2018 to 2020 May, in other words, all these petitioners have successfully completed their respective P.G. Degree courses or P.G. Diploma courses as the case may be on or before 31st May 2020.

5. Even though they completed the P.G. courses successfully, and though they wanted to work for two years period their services have not been utilised by the respondents by offering any job to them to utilise their services for atleast two years period in order to comply with the bond condition that these petitioners would be utilised for two years in Government service.

6. Since no such offer had come from the respondents to utilise the services of the petitioners for two years of their completion of the P.G. Degree courses or P.G. Diploma courses, after the completion of the bond period, they would be free to go for any further option to secure a job in any other Hospitals, Institutions or even they can pursue further higher courses or super specialty courses.

7. However for the aforestated purpose, when they approached the respondents/institutions to get back the original certificates which they produced at the time of joining in P.G. Degree courses or P.G. Diploma courses, they refused to give original certificates pertaining to these petitioners on the simple reason that, since there has been a bond condition in the bond executed by each of the petitioners at the time of admission in P.G. Degree courses or P.G. Diploma courses, they should work for the Institution of Government for the period of 2 years and therefore for the period of two years, the petitioner would not be permitted to take back the original certificates.

8. Only against this stand taken by the respondents as they withheld the certificates belongs to the petitioners, these petitioners have approached this Court and filed this batch of writ petitions.

9. Heard Mr.E.Manoharan, Mr.R.Arumugam, Mr.Suhrith Parthasarathy, Mr. K.Thilageswaran and Mr.Sharath Chandran, learned counsel appearing for the petitioners in respective writ petitions and Mr.Stalin Abhimanyu, learned Additional Government Pleader appearing for the respondents.

10. The issue raised in this batch of writ petitions in fact is no more res integra as a batch of similar writ petitions had been considered and heard along with Writ Appeal No.799 of 2019 by the First Bench of this Court and those cases were disposed of by orders dated 06.10.2020. In the said batch of writ petitions, in the common order passed by the First Bench dated 06.10.2020 of this Court, the following principles have been culled out and declared.

“103. Our conclusions, therefore, are:

i. There is no material difference between the status of students occupying the S