Supreme Court Asks NTF To File Its Stand On Reports Over Safety Of Medical Professionals

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the national task force, constituted to protect medical professionals, to file its reply on the reports filed by states and other stakeholders on preventing gender-based violence and developing safety protocols in hospitals.

The top court, in a suo-motu case, constituted the national task force on August 20 last year to formulate a protocol on safety and security of medical professionals in the wake of the rape and murder of a doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata.

During Tuesday's hearing, a bench of Justices M M Sundresh and N Kotiswar Singh granted eight weeks to the NTF to file its response.

The top court had previously directed hospitals, including AIIMS in New Delhi, to regularise the unauthorised absence of doctors who were part of protests against the rape and murder of a doctor at RG Kar Hospital, Kolkata.

It then took note of the submissions of a doctors' body which said while some hospitals had regularised the absence of the doctors following its August 22, 2024 order, a few others, including AIIMS Delhi, decided to treat the period as leave of absence.

On August 22, last year, the bench made an impassioned appeal to the protesting doctors across the country, asking them to resume work.

Observing "justice and medicine" couldn't be stopped, it directed no coercive action would be taken against doctors once they resumed work.

The heinous crime triggered nationwide outrage and prolonged protests in West Bengal.

On January 20, a Kolkata trial court awarded convict Sanjay Roy "life term imprisonment till death" in the case.

The body of the post-graduate trainee doctor was found in the hospital's seminar room on August 9, last year following which the Kolkata police arrested civic volunteer Roy the next day in connection with the crime.