Bengal heading for legal challenge over arbitrary postings of leaders of RG Kar stir

Kolkata, May 28 (IANS) The West Bengal government is heading for a legal challenge over alleged arbitrary postings by the state health department of three Senior Resident doctors who were the faces of the RG Kar protest movement.

Protests were held by junior doctors over the ghastly rape and murder of a woman doctor of the state-run R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata within the hospital premises in August last year.

The three resident doctors who are miffed over their postings are Debasish Halder, Aniket Mahato, and Asfaqulla Naiya.

They have stated that they will drag the health department to court claiming that their postings were arbitrary.

They have alleged that the postings were selectively given to just the three of them and not to others who appeared for the counselling session along with them for allotment of Senior Resident postings.

The posting, ignoring the first choice of place, was first noticed on Tuesday morning in the case of Halder.

Ignoring his preference for Howrah District Hospital, he was allotted a posting at a rural hospital at Gazole in Malda district, which officially does not have any vacancy for the post of a Senior Resident.

Later, on Tuesday night, information surfaced that Mahato, and Naiya, too, had been posted to far-off places that were not their first choice.

In the case of Mahato, his first choice of posting at RG Kar, from where he did his post-graduation, was ignored and instead he was allotted a hospital at Raiganj in North Dinajpur district in the northern sector of West Bengal.

In the case of Naiya, he was allotted a medical college and hospital in Purulia district ignoring his first choice for a hospital at Arambagh in Hooghly district.

West Bengal Junior Doctor’s Front (WBJDF), the umbrella body of junior doctors in the state spearheading the movement against the R.G. Kar rape and murder tragedy, has announced that they would support Halder, Mahato, and Naiya in their legal battles against the postings.

“A total of 778 junior doctors attended the counselling session for allotment of postings as Senior Residents. While none of them were denied their first choice of posting, the only exceptions were Halder, Mahato, and Naiya.

“From this it is clear, that they became the victims for just being the faces of the R.G. Kar movement. This is gross injustice,” said a WBJDF office bearer.

Mahato explained that their grouse is not about being posted to far-off places but against the total lack of transparency in the allotment process.

Halder and Naiya claimed that besides seeking justice for the R.G. Kar rape and murder victim, their demand was also total transparency in the medical administration system in the state.

“But our examples prove that transparency in the system is still elusive,” said Naiya.

--IANS

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