The Rajasthan High Court has recently directed that as soon as the training of the newly-recruited batch of Block Development Officers (BDO) is completed and posting orders are issued, the Ayurvedic and other doctors, if any working in the Panchayati Raj Department, shall forthwith be repatriated to their parent department/s and shall be provided postings as Medical Officers.
The Division Bench of Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Vinod Kumar Bharwani heard a PIL filed by Ghewar Chand seeking to assail the action of the respondents in deputing and posting Ayurvedic Doctors as BDOs in Panchayat Raj Department and to repatriate them to their parent departments.
Challenge has also been laid to the orders dated 07.03.2017 and 19.11.2019, whereby such doctors were deputed and were provided to the Panchayat Raj Department for being posted as Block Development Officers across the State of Rajasthan.
The respondents have filed a reply and additional affidavit, wherein it is stated that the 31 doctors, who are working as BDO, applied for such posting after taking NOCs from their parent department.
Nevertheless, during the course of arguments, Sunil Beniwal, Additional Advocate General (AAG), apprised the court that now a batch of freshly recruited BDO is undergoing training, which shall be completed by end of February.
He submitted the engagement of Ayurvedic doctors as BDOs was resorted to on account of the grave contingency created by the Covid pandemic. Now as the regularly recruited BDOs are available, the Ayurvedic doctors would be repatriated to their original departments.
Shyam Sundar Paliwal, counsel for the petitioners, prayed that pertinent direction be given to the respondents for repatriating the doctors to their parent department/s at the earliest.
In view of the facts noted above, the Bench directed that as soon as the training of the newly recruited batch of BDOs is completed and posting orders are issued, the Ayurvedic and other doctors, if any working in the Panchayati Raj Department, shall forthwith be repatriated to their parent department/s and shall be provided postings as Medical Officers. “The exercise as directed above shall preferably be completed by the end of March 2022,” the order reads.