Delhi HC asks North DMC to pay its resident doctors' salary

Delhi HC directed the North Delhi Municipal Corporation to pay the salary dues to the resident doctors in its six hospitals, including Kasturba Gandhi and Hindu Rao by June 19. Besides this, the HC also asked the Delhi government to release funds to North DMC so that it can pay the April salary to the doctors.

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday directed North Delhi Municipal Corporation (North-DMC) to pay by June 19 the salary for March to the resident doctors in its six hospitals, including Kasturba Gandhi and Hindu Rao.

A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan also asked the Delhi government to release funds to North DMC so that it can pay the April salary of the resident doctors of its hospitals by June 24.

The bench also issued notice to the Centre, Delhi government, North DMC and various doctors' association seeking their stand on the PIL initiated by the high court on its own.

The detailed order is awaited in the matter which is listed for further hearing on July 8.

Delhi government was represented by Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain and additional standing counsel Satyakam, while the Centre was represented by its standing counsel Anil Soni.

Satyakam and Soni said the amount to be paid, each month, to the resident doctors of the six North DMC hospitals comes to around Rs 8 crore.

The high court on Thursday initiated the PIL based on news reports that doctors of Kasturba Gandhi Hospital have threatened to resign as they have not been paid salaries since March this year.

The news reports also stated that recently doctors of North MCD-run Hindu Rao hospital had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over non-payment of their salaries for the last three months.

The court took suo motu notice of the news reports and initiated the PIL.

(PTI report)