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CIP staffs demonstrate in front of the administrative building in Ranchi on Monday. (Prashant Mitra)
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Jharkhand High Court on Monday passed an interim order restraining 600 non-medical and nursing staff of Ranchi’s Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP) from going ahead with a proposed strike on July 18.
A division bench of the court, comprising Chief Justice Prakash Tatia and Justice Jaya Roy, taking suo-motu cognisance of a vernacular daily report that highlighted the impact of the strike, passed the order, a copy of which was to be the faxed to the CIP authorities. The court also asked its office to file a separate PIL.
“The details given in the report clearly suggests that a large number of patients, many of whom need daily supervision, will be affected if the strike takes place. Depriving basic facilities to indoor patients would be absolutely inhuman,” the court observed.
It said that if the staff had issues then they should sit down and sort it out with the management. But it had no right to inconvenience indoor patients for their demands.
The court has fixed July 24 as the next date of hearing.
Interestingly, around 600 employees of CIP had also launched a two-day dharna in front of the administrative building on Monday in the run-up to the strike, which continued after the order came.
Abdul Kalam, the general secretary of Central Government Hospital Worker’s Union — the body under which the CIP staff are protesting — expressed ignorance and said they were yet to receive a copy of the order.
“The order has not come to our knowledge. Once we get a copy of the order, we will decide our future course of action,” Kalam said.
Prodded about the demands, the general secretary said they were mulling to launch a protest against a host of issues that included demands for appointment on compensatory ground, promotion of all staff nurses, changes in recruitment rules provision of child care leave, payment of tuition fee for the children of employees, among other things.
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