Cuttack, Nov. 5: Orissa High Court yesterday fixed November 31 as the deadline for the state government to send a proposal to the Orissa Public Service Commission (OPSC) for starting the recruitment process to fill 93 posts of assistant professors in the three medical college hospitals of Orissa.

The Orissa government had created the posts in the Orissa Medical Education Service Cadre “for expansion and strengthening of medical education and patient care” in different departments in SCB Medical College and Hospital (Cuttack), VSS Medical College and Hospital (Burla) and MKCG Medical College and Hospital (Berhampur).

The two-judge bench of Justice B.P. Das and Justice Indrajeet Mohanty fixed the deadline while adjudicating on a contempt petition alleging that the order that had directed the state government to send a proposal to the OPSC to start the recruitment process to fill up 26 posts of assistant professors at SCB Medical College and Hospital had not been complied with.

The recruitment process had not started for filling up the posts even after more than five months of concurrence of the state finance department and the governor’s sanction.

The delay came to fore during adjudication of a PIL on insufficient patient care service in different departments of SCB Hospital.

After the secretary of the health department and the director of medical education and training made personal appearances in the case on September 26, the court, on the same day, directed them to send a proposal to the OPSC within a week to start the recruitment of assistant professors against vacancies created in different departments of SCB Hospital.

During the hearing today, the court’s attention was drawn to inaction over filling up 67 posts created by the government at VSS Medical College and Hospital and MKCG Medical College and Hospital.

The court further directed the OPSC to complete the selection process, which had already been started for filling up 134 vacant posts at three medical college hospitals during 2010-11. The court also directed the State Administrative Tribunal to dispose of related cases pending before it within three months after the OPSC pleaded that the selection process had been disrupted because of it.