B KRISHNA BHAT Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) SINCE common questions arise for consideration in both the cases, they are heard together and by consent, they are taken up for final disposal.

(2.) THESE public interest litigations are filed seeking appropriate writ or direction to the state of Karnataka to take immediate action to put an end to the strike by doctors working in the government hospitals and to issue a direction that the persons practising medicine cannot go on strike affecting the general public. The prayers also include seeking direction to the State Government and the ministry of Health and Family Planning to take appropriate disciplinary proceedings against the erring doctors who have acted against the medical ethics and public interest and to deal with them, in accordance with law; to declare that the strike called upon by the Karnataka medical Officers' Association, Victoria Hospital, Bangalore, is illegal unconstitutional and that they have no right to abstain from medical service to which they have been appointed in Government hospital all over the State; and to direct the Chairman, Indian Medical Coun-cil-5th respondent, to initiate action against the members of the Karnataka Medical Officers' Association, who have acted illegally and unconstitutionally.

(3.) PETITIONERS in these PILs have only vindicated the anguish of the public at large and particularly that of the common men of the society, who are below the middle class, economically poor and downtrodden, and those who mostly need the medical facilities of the government hospitals. The strike called by the Karnataka Medical Officers' Association that the Government doctors propose to go on strike from 12-11-2008 necessitated the petitioners to "approach this Court in the above pils, that too two days after commencement of the strike by the doctors.