The Lahore High Court on Friday issued notices to the Young Doctors Association (YDA), the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), the federal government and the health secretary for para-wise comments for January 25 on a contempt petition against doctors for going on strike.
Justice Ijazul Ahsan was hearing the petition filed by the Judicial Activism Panel through its chairman Advocate Mohammad Azhar Siddique.
The judge said the court had already stopped doctors from going on strike and it knew how to enforce its orders.
Siddique said a strike at the cost of patients’ lives was criminal. He said the YDA action amounted to sedition as stated in Section 124-A of the Pakistan Penal Code.
He said the Punjab government had placed doctors in “essential services” as provided in the Punjab Essential Services (Maintenance) Act, 1958, therefore, the doctors and the government were bound to facilitate patients. He requested the court to direct the PMDC to take strict punitive action including cancellation of practicing licences of striking doctors. He said the PMDC and other respondents had not yet submitted their replies in response to his contempt petition. As no YDA and PMDC representative appeared before the court, the YDA counsel repeated his mantra, saying that the government had yet to implement the new service structure for doctors.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2013.