CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday sought the reply of the state government on the petition of government doctors seeking implementation of a 2009 G.O, which provides for dynamic assured career progression (DACP), and quashing of the 2024 G.O. providing incentives to two categories of doctors.
When the petition filed by doctors, including S Perumal Pillai, head of the Legal Coordination Committee, a body of government doctors, came up for hearing on Tuesday, Justice N Anand Venkatesh ordered the government to file the reply by October 28 and accordingly, adjourned the case.
The petitioners have also challenged a G.O. passed on May 2, 2024, by the Health department providing for incentives alone, instead of ensuring enforcement of DACP, for the specialists and super-specialists.
They alleged that the 2024 G.O. is arbitrary, unsustainable and against all canons of justice insofar as it has refused to implement G.O. Ms 354 which was designed to address the fundamental issues of pay disparity and career progression for government doctors.
The impugned GO disregards the recommendations made by the working committee and subsequent committees which were constituted to look into the issues of doctors and propose solutions to the issue of pay disparity. It is in complete violation of the principles of natural justice because the doctors’ bodies were not consulted nor heard before passing it, the petitioners alleged.
They sought the court to quash the operation of the impugned G.O. issued in 2024 and consequently order implementation of the 2009 G.O. which ensures pay parity.