3,500 JUNIOR DOCTORS RESIGN EN MASSE IN MP

Hours after Madhya Pradesh High Court declared their strike illegal, around 3,500 junior doctors in five medical colleges in the state resigned en masse on Thursday night. The striking doctors gave no sign of relenting on the sixth day of their protest on Friday, even as the 24hour deadline set by the MP high court to resume duty ended in the evening.

“We are planning to move the supreme court against the high court order”, Madhya Pradesh Junior Doctors Association president Arvind Meena said on Friday.

He said the junior doctors would continue their stir till all their demands were met by the state government.

The move by the MP medical science university to cancel enrolment of 468 students for third year PG in the five government medical colleges in the wake of the MP high court declaring their strike illegal has upset the junior doctors, the association said.

“The state government has already cancelled our enrolment for third year PG denying us to sit for examinations”, Dr Meena said.

Earlier, in response to a petition filed by a local lawyer, a division bench of Jabalpur high court on Thursday took strong exception to the move by the junior doctors to go on strike amid Coronavirus pandemic and declared their strike illegal.

The court also directed the state government to take stern action against the agitators if they did not call off their strike by Friday evening. The junior doctors went on indefinite strike on May

1 demanding hike in their stipend and free treatment to them and their family members if they contracted Covid-19.