The dharna by junior doctors in front of the West Bengal health department headquarters at Salt Lake over the rape and murder of a doctor at RG Kar Medical College & Hospital, entered its fourth day on Friday.
The agitators are determined to continue with their protests for an indefinite period till their demands are fulfilled.
The proposed discussion with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at state secretariat Nabanna on Thursday did not fructify as the administration refused to accept the doctors’ demand for a live-telecast of the meeting.
Following the refusal, the 30-member delegation went back to the dharna venue at Salt Lake and announced the continuation of the protests for an indefinite period.
The demonstration started on the afternoon of Tuesday and is still continuing.
The protesting doctors on Thursday morning reiterated their previous stand of going to the discussion table only if their four conditions are accepted by the state government.
These four conditions are allowing a delegation of 30 representatives, meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, live telecast of the meeting for the sake of transparency among all parties and finally the meeting to be based around the five-point agenda outlined since the beginning.
One of the major demands in the five-point agenda already outlined includes the suspensions of the state health secretary, state director of health services and director of medical education.
Now, it remains to be seen whether in the next hearing at the Supreme Court in the matter on September 17, the counsel for the West Bengal government will highlight these continuing protests as contempt of the apex court’s observation about the doctors re-joining duty.
In the September 9 hearing, the three-judge Bench of the apex court observed that the court will not be able to intervene in any possible state government action against the junior doctors if they do not rejoin duty by 5 P.M. on September 10.
Legal experts are of the opinion that if the state government’s counsel makes any attempt to describe the protests as contempt of the top court’s order, going strictly by legal terms this argument is unlikely to be accepted by the Supreme Court.
According to the senior counsel of Calcutta High Court, Kaushik Gupta, the Supreme Court never gave a direction to the junior doctors to return back to duty by the deadline fixed by it.
“What the apex court observed was that it will not be able to intervene if the state government acts against the junior doctors unless the latter rejoin duty by a specific time and date.
“Legally the ball is now in the court of the state government on what administrative action it will adopt to end the protests and compel the junior doctors to rejoin duty. But in my opinion, the logic of contempt of court will not be applicable," Gupta explained.