New Delhi, July 17
The doctors of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in their face-off with Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss on anti-reservation agitation issue today got partial relief with the Supreme Court directing the government to pay them 15-day wages up to May 30, a day after the order for ending the agitation was passed.
But the court declined to cover the four-day period from May 31 to June 3 for payment of the salary to the doctors who went on strike from May 14 against the government decision to extend 27 per cent OBC quota in institutions of higher education.
It said since the order for calling off the strike was passed on May 29, the relief could not be extended bound May 30 when the doctors were supposed to get back to work.
The doctors had ended the strike on June 3 and Ramadoss had ordered not to pay the salary to the doctors for 19 days strike period from May 14 to June 3 enforcing the “no work, no pay” policy.
The Bench of Mr Justice Arijit Pasayat and Mr Justice Lokeshwar Singh Panta said the court was ordering payment of the salary up to June 30 only in view of the government’s assurance not to take any “punitive action” against the doctors if they joined their duty but was not overriding the “no work, no pay” principle.
“As a matter of law, we do not approve of doctors going on strike and normally the principle of “no work, no pay” would have been applied but for your (government) assurance that no punitive action will be taken against them if they join back their duty… you have to pay them the salary,” the Bench told Additional Solicitor-General (ASG) Gopal Subramaniam, who had given the assurance on behalf of the Centre on May 29 before the order for ending the strike was passed.
When the ASG wanted further clarification on departure form the “no work, no pay” policy in the present case to ensure that it should not be made a precedent for future cases, the court said it was not for departure from the policy.
The exception in this case was being made only because the government itself had given a clear assurance that no “punitive action” would be taken against the doctors if they went back to work.
The Health Ministry’s order for extending the internship of junior doctors for as many days as they had been absent from duty due to the strike, which consequently made them ineligible to sit in the postgraduate entrance examination, had already been waived off by
the court on July 5 in view of the government’s assurance of no punitive action.
The doctors, who had moved the court for payment of full salary and withdrawal of other punitive actions for participating in the agitation, also pointed out that even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, in his appeal on May 28, had said that no action would be taken against the doctors if they returned back to work.
