Bihar hospital seeks to know whether a job applicant is virgin

Mandal added that the Central Services Rules have a provision that when a person joins a job and dies soon after, there may be a “boyfriend or girlfriend who can turn up with claim to get the job on compensatory grounds’’.

Bihar’s premier Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) has courted controversy for its recruitment norms for doctors and class three employees including nursing staff — both male and female. It has a marriage declaration form that asks an applicant to declare if he or she is “virgin”. The declaration form also seeks to know whether one is a bachelor, widower, married with one wife.

“This format has been there for long and even AIIMS and other central services follow this. Unless the Central government changes it or judiciary intervenes, we cannot change it on our own,’’ said IGIMS’s Dr Manish Mandal.

Mandal added that IGIMS followed AIIMS. He conceded that the use of term” virgin” could have been avoided. Mandal added that the Central Services Rules have a provision that when a person joins a job and dies soon after, there may be a “boyfriend or girlfriend who can turn up with claim to get the job on compensatory grounds’’.

A Nurses Union member at AIIMS, Delhi, said that employees are not asked to declare their virginity. AIIMS is an autonomous institute, formed under an Act of Parliament.

(with ENS inputs, Delhi)