Junior doctors of Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) resumed duty on Thursday morning after giving the state government a 48-hour ultimatum to take action against principal S.N. Sinha failing which they would restart their strike.

Junior doctors (postgraduate students) had earlier gone on strike on Wednesday afternoon after their principal slapped second-year postgraduate student Alok Kumar following a scuffle after Sinha scolded him for parking his bike in the barricaded area in front of the hospital's emergency wing. The student had slapped the principal in return after which, sources said, Sinha's security guard beat up the junior doctor.

Both parties lodged FIRs against each other at Pirbahore police station while the college administration served a show-cause notice on the student asking him to explain his point within four days.

While principal Sinha accused him of manhandling him, the student accused Sinha of misbehaving with him on caste lines. He also lodged a case against him under the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

The junior doctors decided to call off the strike after the anaesthesia department head, Vijay Kumar Gupta, met the students on Thursday morning. "We are facing overload of patients because many private hospital are not accepting the scrapped Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes," Gupta said. "Patients have no option than to depend on government hospitals. The students thankfully called off the strike."

A senior PMCH doctor said he and his colleagues were talking to both parties. "This is our internal matter. We are a family and want this sorted out. We have communicated this to principal Sinha and he seems agreeable to withdrawing the case."

Patients suffer when doctors go on strike but doctors said the administration and health department had not taken measures to mitigate effects of strike on patients.

While chairing the Rogi Kalyan Samiti's meeting of the hospital in June, divisional commissioner Annad Kishore had asked the health department to create a separate cadre comprising 120 doctors to look after the emergency wing of PMCH so that patients don't suffer in case of strike. PMCH sent a requisition to the health department but so far the health department has not created the separate cadre. Anand had also asked hospital administration to take steps to ensure safety of doctors at the hospital but that also has not been done yet.

Earlier in the day an interlocutory application (IA) was filed in Patna high court with respect to the ongoing strike at PMCH. The IA was filed by an advocate of the high court, Manibhushan Pratap Sengar. IA is flied to seek some urgent relief or bring certain new facts to the knowledge of the court.

Sengar had earlier filed a PIL in the Patna High Court in May when junior doctors had gone on strike at PMCH after some of their colleagues were man-handled by a crowd of 100 people during duty hours. Acting on the PIL, the court had asked the health department what arrangement it had made for security of doctors.

Additional reporting by Nishant Sinha