JAMMU: Justice Janak Raj Kotwal of J&K High Court on Wednesday observed that no such situation should be allowed to arise where the Department of Health has to face scarcity of the doctors.
While deciding bunch of petitions filed by medical officers in the Jammu and Kashmir Health and Family Welfare (Gazetted) Service of them have now been selected for appointment on deputation to the tenure post of Registrar or Demonstrator in the Government Medical College, Srinagar and some have been similarly selected for appointment to the tenure post of Senior Residency in Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) Srinagar. The Department of Health, which is their parent department, however, has refused to relieve them to enable them to join the said tenure posts.
Justice Janak Raj Kotwal after hearing both the sides observed that the allegation of the petitioners that Department of Health resorts to pick and choose method and acts arbitrarily in relieving the in-service doctors for aforementioned tenure posts and the Principals of the Medical Colleges do not relieve in time the doctors who complete their tenure has not been aptly met with by the respondents 1 & 2 in their reply affidavit(s) but for their simple denial in this regard and is supported by the detail furnished by the Administrative Secretary in his affidavit.
It is not without any reason that the State Government all through and latest under the Rules of 2013 has provided a fixed quota for the doctors to be deputed out of the Department of Health for Registrarship/ Demonstratorship/ Senior Residency, higher studies or deputation to other departments.
With these observations, Justice Janak Raj Kotwal holds that the Government order No. 164-HME of 2012, therefore, is required to be modified and further ordered that no case for issuing writ of mandamus directing respondents 1 & 2 to relieve the petitioners for joining the tenure posts of Registrar/Demonstrator/ Senior Residency at this stage is made out and writ to this extent is refused.