Patna High Court on Friday directed the state to file action taken report in two weeks in a public interest litigation (PIL) filed seeking the court's attention over vacant posts of doctors, including those of specialists, in government hospitals across Bihar.

A division bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice Anil Kumar Upadhyay passed the order.

The petitioner, Jitendra Kumar Singh, had said in the PIL that of 3,200 posts of specialist doctors in the state, around 2,000 were lying vacant, while out of 5,700 posts of medical officers at government hospitals in Bihar, nearly 1,800 posts were vacant. He has also alleged in his petition that nearly all the hospitals of the state lack basic infrastructure, including beds, medicines and proper laboratories.

Singh's counsel Manibhushan Pratap Sengar had told the court that the pathetic condition of the hospitals could be gauged from the unavailability of doctors and necessary medicines on many occasions.

The court had directed the government to give figures category-wise - specialists, senior residents, tutors, medical officers - stating how many appointments it had made in all these categories and how many vacancies existed.

The court had earlier directed principal health secretary R.K. Mahajan to file an affidavit giving specific timeline to fill up the teaching faculty vacancies in all medical colleges and government hospitals and also to give details of the vacancies of medical officers in the Bihar Health Services.

On the court's directive, the government had filed the affidavit but the bench was dissatisfied. The court had then directed the state to file a supplementary affidavit.

Mahajan, in his supplementary affidavit, had said appointments for the vacant posts of senior residentutor was likely to be completed in February, 2017. It had further stated that the requisition for appointing 1,177 assistant professors had been sent to Bihar Public Service Commission, which was yet to attain finality, while promotion to all professors and associate professors was to be completed in three months.