The Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association (TNMOA) flagged serious concerns over the conduct of inter-directorate counselling for transfers from the Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services (DMS) and Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine (DPH) to the Directorate of Medical Education (DME), alleging that the process disregarded “long-established principles of seniority, transparency, and fairness”.

In a statement issued, the association said that during the counselling conducted on Saturday, service seniors, who have rendered years of government service, were denied participation solely due to the condition of one-year station seniority.

For the first time in recent years, the inter-directorate seniority list was not published prior to counselling, depriving doctors of the transparency necessary to verify their position and eligibility.

Many doctors with less than one year of station seniority, and in certain instances, even less than one year of total service, were reportedly permitted to participate and opt for medical college postings without even submission of service proformas, while many senior doctors remained excluded, the TNMOA alleged.

This has caused widespread confusion and panic among government doctors serving under DMS and DPH, particularly those who have spent several years in difficult, remote, and underserved areas while patiently awaiting opportunities in DME institutions.

The association demanded that the State government cancel the counselling, publish the inter-directorate seniority list in a transparent manner, permit all eligible candidates to submit their service particulars and proformas, grant exemption from the one-year station seniority criterion for the present counselling cycle and re-conduct the counselling after completion of DME promotions and consequential transfers, ensuring fairness to all service doctors, the statement said.