The Delhi High Court on Monday granted two months time to the Delhi government to fill up the vacancies of doctors and medical staff at the Institute of Human Behavior and Allied Sciences (IHBAS).
A single judge bench of the high court presided by Justice Najmi Waziri while taking note of the matter said, “we can’t afford to let hospital be vacant. It is one of the best institute we have but it should not be found lacking by short of medical staff.”
The observations came in while the court was hearing a petition filed by social activist and lawyer Amit Sahni for initiating the contempt of proceedings against the Officers of Central/Delhi Government and Director of Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) for allegedly not willfully complying the court’s directions to tackle the shortage of doctors at IHBAS.
However, after the court noted that Centre has no role in recruitment of doctors at IHBAS, the court deleted it from the memo of parties.
The petition states that 75% posts of doctors and medical staff are vacant and therefore the patients with psychiatric and clinical psychological disorder have been suffering since long due to acute shortage of medical and other staff.
Sahni also contended that even Faculty Association of IHBAS (FAI) took note of the situation on 29-01-2021 in its minutes of meeting that the grievance regarding shortage of doctors at 23 % functional faculty leading to over-burdening the existing faculty members.
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FAI had also noted that even pursuant to the directions of Delhi High Court to fill vacancies as early as possible, nothing has happened till date, the petitioner contended.
“The division bench had on September 2, 2020, directed the respondent authorities concerned to treat this writ petition as a representation and to look into the grievances ventilated by the petitioner in accordance with law, rules, regulations and government policies applicable to the facts of the case. Court had also said that we expect that the respondent authorities concerned shall fill up the vacancies as early as possible and practicable,” Sahni’s petition adds.