Two govt doctors approach Calcutta HC challenging 'arbitrary' postings

Kolkata, May 30 (IANS) The West Bengal government on Friday was embroiled in yet another legal battle over the alleged arbitrary postings of three senior resident doctors by the state Health Department, with two of them approaching the Calcutta High Court to challenge the order.

The petition filed by Debasish Halder and Asfaqulla Naiya has been admitted by the single-judge vacation bench of Justice Partha Sarathi Chatterjee. The tentative date of the first hearing in the matter is June 5.

It is not yet clear whether Aniket Mahato, the third senior resident to allegedly become a victim of arbitrary postings like Halder and Naiya, will later become a party in the same case or will file a separate petition in the matter.

All three of them were lead faces of the movement against the ghastly rape and murder of a junior woman doctor of state-R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata within the hospital premises in August last year.

While all three of them were given postings in far-off places, ignoring their first choice of postings during the counselling session on this issue, Halder was given a posting at a hospital that does not officially have any vacancy for senior residents currently.

What was more intriguing was that while a total of 778 junior doctors attended the counselling session for allotment of postings as senior residents, only Halder, Mahato, and Naiya were selectively denied their first choice of postings.

The West Bent Bengal Junior Doctor’s Front (WBJDF), the umbrella body of junior doctors in the state spearheading movement against the R.G. Kar rape and murder tragedy, has announced that they would be behind Halder, Mahato, and Naiya in their legal battles against such arbitrary postings.

The three senior doctors have explained that their complaint is not about their posting at far-off places but against the total lack of transparency in the posting allotment process. They also claimed that besides seeking justice for the R.G. Kar rape & murder victim, their demand was also total transparency in the medical administration system in the state.

--IANS

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