New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday held
that doctors of government hospitals are not allowed to go on
strike and directed the AIIMS authorities to find out and
punish those medical practitioners who had resorted to such a
method of protest in recent years.
A bench of Chief Justice Justice Dipak Misra and Justice
Sanjiv Khanna said medical practitioners resorting to strike,
protests or demonstrations would amount to contempt of court.
"The doctors, residents, interns, para medical staff
and any other person connected with AIIMS could not have gone
on strike and therefore their said action is declared
illegal," the bench said.
The court ordered the management of the premier institute
to identify doctors who had participated in a 17-day strike in
protest against OBC reservation in educational institutions in
2006 and a two-day demonstration in 2007 against the removal
of its then director P Venugopal.
"The president of AIIMS shall constitute a high-powered
committee to conduct an inquiry to find out who were the
persons who participated in the earlier strikes and thereafter
on such identification proceed against them as per law," the
bench said.
The court passed the order on a PIL seeking action
against the doctors who had participated in the strike and
refused to give treatment to patients in the hospital.
"It is obligatory on the part of the authorities of the
AIIMS to see that no one involved in the institution shows any
kind of deviancy by taking recourse to strike, protests or
demonstrations and he who engages himself in such activity
would be liable for disciplinary proceeding and also for
contempt of this court," the court further said.
PTI
