STRIKE IS CALLED OFF

A SUPREME Court directive did what the government's repeated talks could not: make medicos call off their strike and return to classes and wards.

DOCtORS RETURN TO WORK FROM TODAY

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A SUPREME Court directive did what the government's repeated talks could not: make medicos call off their strike and return to classes and wards.

The medicos of all five medical colleges in the Capital decided to end their 19-day agitation on Wednesday after the Supreme Court — for the third day in a row — directed them to stop the stir in the "interest of the general public". The doctors will resume duty at 8 a.m. on Thursday.

"We got a favourable response from the Supreme Court and so decided not to confront it," said Safal Singh, a student of UCMS.

At the students' meetings following the SC directive, the majority of them said they should end the agitation as they had filed petitions before the court. "We are now a party in the case and hence cannot carry on with demonstrations," said Anil Sharma of the AIIMS' Resident Doctors' Association, which along with the MAMC association, had filed petitions before SC. "The court gave us three days' time but we have decided to get back to work as soon as possible so that no more patients will suffer."

They are planning to pass the baton to students of DU, JNU and IIT.

Earlier, both the court and the government had cracked the whip against the medicos. While the Health Ministry threatened to serve termination notices to the striking doctors, a bench comprising justices Arijit Pasayat and Lokeshwar Singh Panta gave a three-day ultimatum and said: "There cannot be two channels of adjudication. Strikes are only causing inconvenience to the public."

The court had also assured the medicos that the government would not take any action against them for acts done during the course of the strike.