CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered the Tamil Nadu government to give equal pay with service benefits to the nurses recruited through the Medical Recruitment Board (MRB), as per a 2018 court order.
A division bench of justices R Subramanian and PT Asha passed the orders on Tuesday while closing a contempt of court plea filed by the TN MRB Nurses Empowerment Association, seeking to punish the authority concerned for not complying with the 2018 order.
“In light of the detailed report of the scrutiny committee, this court directs the respondent/contemnor to comply with the order dated June 6, 2018 of the court by granting equal pay with service benefits to the MRB Nurses in the state within a period of three months,” the bench said in the order.
As per the case of the petitioner-association, about 7, 243 nurses were recruited through the MRB, following a 2015 notification, on consolidated pay but work was extracted as that of regular nurses. They urged the government for pay parity, but was denied.
The matter reached the high court which constituted a two-member scrutiny committee consisting of retired high court judges V Bharathidasan and V Parthiban to go through the claims of the MRB recruited nurses and file a report. In 2018, the court issued the orders to provide pay parity, as per the findings of the committee. In the meantime, the government provided equal pay to about 4,000 nurses.
The association filed the contempt plea in 2019, when the Health and Family Welfare department did not take action as per the court order. The division bench, though closed the contempt plea, stated that it can be reopened if the order is not complied within the stipulated three-month time.
Kallakurichi hooch tragedy: 2 main accused get bail
Chennai: The Madras High Court on Tuesday granted conditional bail to two of the main accused in the Kallakurichi hooch death case. Justice Sunder Mohan issued the orders for conditional bail to Kannukutty and Thamotharan, who have been incarcerated for about 10 months.
The judge also imposed conditions, including appearing before the investigation officer every day, until further orders. Following the death of 67 people in the hooch tragedy, the state government had handed over the probe to the CB-CID. However, based on certain PIL petitions, the high court ordered probe transfer to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).