After court warning, Nagpur civic body sends proposal to regularise 231 health workers
Bombay High Court's Nagpur bench threatened contempt action before the civic body moved on long-pending regularisation of health staff.
Dharti More and other employees who had long been working as nurses, or health workers, at the Nagpur Municipal Corporation had not been made permanent. The employees had filed a petition over this at the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court. During the hearing on the petition, the High Court warned the corporation of contempt action, after which the civic administration swung into action.
The extent of this can be gauged from the fact that at Monday's hearing, advocate Jemini Kasat, appearing for the corporation, assured the court that a proposal for the regularisation of 231 eligible employees would be sent to the state government within 24 hours.
During the hearing, advocate Kasat told the court that a final decision on implementing the regularisation would be taken soon. The High Court raised a sharp question over this response, asking what exactly the corporation administration meant by "soon" and how much more time it would take.
Following this, the corporation's lawyer took instructions from Shyam Kapse, assistant commissioner of the general administration department of the civic body. Kapse told the court that the Nagpur Municipal Corporation would need seven days to prepare the related data and complete the entire process.
When the court asked further questions about the timeline, instructions were also taken from Dr. Deepak Selokar, medical officer of the health department, who was himself present in court that day. He told the court clearly that, as per the conditions of the decision, a total of 231 employees had been found eligible for consideration for regularisation.
Dr. Selokar also assured the court that the proposal for these 231 eligible employees would be sent to the state government that same day, Monday. During the hearing, the High Court laid particular emphasis on the fact that the delay and laxity of the corporation officials was being viewed under the provisions of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971. It was only after the High Court's clear indication of action under the contempt law that the officials realised the seriousness of the matter.
