The High Court cleared that it was not going into other issues between the AAP government and corporation
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday told the AAP government to release to the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NrDMC) the funds it requires to pay the stipends of the resident doctors in the six hospitals run by the civic body.
The high court asked the Delhi government to release within 15 days an amount of Rs 8 crore, as was done by it earlier, to NrDMC without waiting for completion of paperwork so that the resident doctors can be paid.
A bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan said that the resident doctors do not get a regular salary and instead they are only given stipends or emoluments which ought not to be denied to them.
The bench made it clear that the amount being released was meant solely for the purpose of paying the stipends or emoluments of the resident doctors in the six hospitals of NrDMC.
It also directed the corporation to complete all the paperwork in relation to the Rs 8 crore that would be released by the Delhi government and warned that failure to complete the formalities would lead to action against the officials concerned.
It further directed the corporation to place before the bench the utilisation certificates indicating that the amount of Rs 8 crore released by the Delhi government earlier, on court orders, were used to pay the resident doctors,
The High Court also made it clear that it was not going into the other issues between the Delhi government and the corporation with regard to payment of salaries of other employees of NrDMC and the funds it claims it is yet to receive under various heads.
The high court was hearing a PIL initiated by it based on news reports that doctors of Kasturba Gandhi Hospital have threatened to resign as they have not been paid salaries since March this year.
The news reports also stated that recently the doctors of North MCD-run Hindu Rao hospital had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over non-payment of their salaries for the months of March, April and May.
In its status report, filed in response to the plea, the corporation has said that salaries upto May of all resident doctors in hospitals run by the civic body have been paid.
The corporation has also said in its report that the salary upto April of all of its regular doctors have also been paid.