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London: A guidance issued by the British health ministry is illegal because it contravenes previous rights guaranteed under the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme (HSMP) visa, Britain's apex law court was told.
Ranbir Singh, counsel for the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), told House of Lords judges on Thursday that the HSMP visa issued by the Home Office gave its holders a "bundle of rights, privileges and liberties" in Britain and that these were now threatened by a Department of Health guidance.
Arguing before a panel of five judges headed by Lord Bingham, Singh said the HSMP visa gave its holders the right to be considered on merit for a job - and it was a right "just as the right to vote".
"They are free to apply and be considered on their merit for any job," he told the court.
The case will decide the fate of 13,500 doctors from India who are in Britain on the HSMP.
They found themselves in no man's land after the Department of Health issued a "guidance" in 2006, saying the country's largest health employer - the National Health Service - should hire non-European Union doctors only if no EU candidates were available.
An appeals court overturned the guidance last year, but the ministry then took the case to the House of Lords, which heard the case on Thursday.
During the hearing, counsel for the department said more than once that although it was titled "guidance", there would be "institutional disappointment" if it were not followed. It was an employment rather than an immigration matter.
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