CHENNAI: Taking into account the interest of contract nurses in Tamil Nadu who have been pleading ‘Equal Pay for Equal Work’, the Madras High Court has appointed a scrutiny committee comprising two retired judges to conduct scrutiny in each district of all the work registers of individual nurses. The Scrutiny Committee formed by the Madras High Court has to file its report on March 8th 2024 after doing a scrutiny on case to case basis.
Justice S.Vaidyanathan and Justice P.T.Asha have given this direction on December 18th 2023 and the order copy was received a few days back by the concerned parties on a contempt petition filed in the high court. The petitioner is Tamil Nadu MRB Nurses Empowerment Association.
The Madras High Court has in its order formed a panel of two judges to compare the work of contract nurses / MRB nurses in Government hospitals with the work of permanent nurses in the case related to equal pay for equal work. This scrutiny committee appointed by the Madras High Court includes Mr.Justice V.Parthiban and Mr.Justice V.Bharathidasan (retired judges of Madras HC) and the officers of Health Department in each district will have to submit the documents submitted by each of the individual contract nurses to this committee during its visit.
The scrutiny committee will conduct scrutiny in the headquarters of each district and the work register of each of the individual nurses will be submitted to the panel. The Madras High Court also gave a list of names of district representatives from all the 38 districts of the petitioner association to assist the scrutiny committee. Further, this matter has been posted in the HC on March 8th 2024.
This latest order is on a contempt petition filed in the court that the HC order was not complied with by the authorities in the manner as directed by the Madras High Court in the case where concerned nurses contract nurses to be given an opportunity of hearing on case to case basis as to whether the nurses appointed on contract were performing the same duties as the nurses in Government hospitals by looking into representations of each and every nurse.
