No Reinstatement, Compensate Doctors Terminated for Long Absenteeism: SC Orders UP Govt

New Delhi: Modifying the Allahabad High Court's order directing the Uttar Pradesh Government to reinstate services of a large number of doctors terminated for their long absence from service, the Supreme Court bench directed the State to pay compensation to them instead.

The top court bench held that the conduct of persons who invoked writ jurisdiction must be considered before granting any relief and ordered that instead of reinstating these doctors, a compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh should be paid to each of them.

Earlier, the Allahabad High Court, while considering the pleas of doctors employed in the health services of the UP Government, had quashed their termination order issued on May 3, 2010.

However, the State had challenged the High Court's order dating back to 2015 before the Apex Court. While considering the appeal, the top court bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih took note of the admitted fact that the doctors had remained continuously absent for more than 4-5 years.

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As per the latest media report by Deccan Herald, the Apex Court found that none of the doctors had pleaded that after their termination, they continued to survive without either practicing medicine or taking any other employment. They also did not submit before the Court that they had no income from the date of termination.

Therefore, the bench observed, "After noticing that the respondents (doctors) have long absentation of more than 4 to 5 years, the High Court ought to have moulded the relief by not granting reinstatement. The writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution is always discretionary and the conduct of the persons who invoke the jurisdiction has to be taken into consideration while granting reliefs."

Accordingly, the bench modified the High Court's order by directing the State to pay a lump sum compensation of Rs 2,50,000 to each of the doctors in lieu of reinstatement within a period of three months.

Filing the appeal before the top court bench, the State argued that the High Court did not take note of what was stated in the termination order, since it was impracticable to hold inquiry against few thousand doctors who remained absent for years. Further, the State submitted that which is why a recourse to clause (b) of the second proviso to Article 311 (2) of the Constitution was taken and the employment of the doctors was terminated.

Further, the top court bench observed that the High Court's order showed that the only argument canvassed by the State Government was that the doctors were absent for a long period and public interest was suffering.

It was observed by the bench that if according to the State Government, submissions actually made were not noted by the High Court, the remedy of that was before the High Court.

However, noting that it was not done, the bench modified the High Court's order and directed the payment of lumpsum compensation to the doctors.

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