HC rejects plea to ban private practice of government doctors
The Madras High Court Bench here has dismissed a public interest litigation petition seeking a direction to the State government and Tamil Nadu Medical Council to ban private practice of government doctors in all cadres in order to help them concentrate more on treating patients at government hospitals.
A Division Bench of Justices S. Nagamuthu and M.V. Muralidaran rejected the plea on the ground that the petitioner had not mentioned any specific instance of a government doctor involved in private practice of medicine and where there was any legal bar for government doctors to practice in private hospitals and nursing homes.
V Aarthi of North Gandhi Gramam near Karur district had filed the PIL petition in 2012 on the ground that it was not appropriate to permit government doctors alone to take up private practice when all other government servants including the policemen were regulated by a code of conduct which prohibited them from engaging in private businesses for profit.
“All government servants including doctors should be treated alike without any partiality,” she said and claimed that private practice by government doctors was banned in many States including Jammu and Kashmir.
Stating that a government woman doctor was hacked to death in her clinic in Thoothukudi in 2012 by the husband of a pregnant woman who died, the petitioner claimed that the doctor had to face such a serious consequence because of her failure to concentrate on treating the patient due to overwork.
“Government doctors should render their full service to the patients coming to the government hospitals but they unfortunately tended to focus on private practice and hence it should be immediately banned,” she said.
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