Reasonable Work Hours for Resident Doctors
United Doctors Front v Union of India
The Supreme Court will decide if continued violation of duty-hour norms breach resident doctors’ fundamental rights under Article 21
Pending
Parties
Petitioners: United Doctors Front (UDF)
Lawyers: Advocate Satyam Singh and AoR Neema
Respondents: Union of India
Lawyers: Attorney General R. Venkataramani, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta
Case Details
Case Number: Diary Number: 21183 of 2025
Next Hearing:
Last Updated: August 22, 2025
TAGS: Article 21, doctors, Right to Life, Work Hours
Key Issues
Does continued violation of duty-hour norms breach resident doctors’ fundamental rights under Article 21?
Whether the 1992 notification (S-11014/3/91-ME(D)) of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is binding and enforceable against government and private medical institutions?
Whether the National Medical Commission’s vague reference to “reasonable working hours” in PGMER-23 suffices in the absence of concrete thresholds or enforcement mechanisms?
Case Description
On 21 April 2025, the United Doctors Front (UDF), an organisation that advocates for the rights and welfare of medical professionals, filed a writ petition before the Supreme Court on the inhumane and unconstitutional working conditions of Resident Doctors across the nation.
In 1985, the Supreme Court had directed all state governments, universities and medical institutions to adopt a uniform central residency scheme by 1993. Under that mandate, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare issued Notification No. S-11014/3/91-ME(D) on 5 June 1992, which capped resident doctors’ duty hours at 12 hours per day and 48 hours per week.
According to the petitioners, despite this clear directive, institutions have routinely pushed doctors into 70–100-hour workweeks without adequate rest. On 6 September 2020, this had prompted the Registrar of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences to reiterate the 1992 norms in an Office Memorandum. The petitioner claims that even this Memorandum has “remained ineffective in its implementation.”
In 2023, the National Medical Commission’s Post-Graduate Medical Education Regulations, under Chapter V 5.2 (ii), invoked a vague standard of “reasonable working hours” and did not lay down any enforceable thresholds. The guideline says: “All post-graduate students will work as full-time resident doctors. They will work for reasonable working hours and will be provided reasonable time for rest in a day.”
In June 2024, a report by the National Task Force linked the suicides of over 150 medical students in the last five years to institutional apathy and chronic stress.
Confronted with this continuous exploitation of resident doctors and systemic neglect, the UDF prayed for the strict enforcement of residency duty hours as per the 1992 notification and adequate rest between shifts.
A Division Bench comprising Justices K. Vinod Chandran and N.V. Anjaria heard the petition on 14 July 2025.