Women cannot be stopped from doing night duty, it is the government's responsibility to provide them security; CJI also took Sibal to task

The Supreme Court strongly objected to the West Bengal government's notification on Tuesday, which stated that women doctors should avoid night duty and limit their shifts to 12 hours. The court ruled that women should not be assigned night duty. No woman can be told that she cannot work nights.

Doctors, pilots, and military personnel all work at night. Women physicians are prepared to work in any situation, and they should. Women do not want concessions, but rather equal opportunity. They cannot be stopped from performing nighttime duties. The state is responsible for providing them with security.

The apex court told the West Bengal government that it should correct its notification. Apart from this, the court also raised questions on the West Bengal government hiring security personnel on contract for security in hospitals. These comments and instructions were given by a bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud on Tuesday during the hearing of the case of brutality and murder of a trainee doctor in Kolkata. The Supreme Court is hearing the case on its own initiative.

The court told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who was representing the West Bengal government, that you cannot tell women not to do night duty. This will harm their career. It is the responsibility of the state to provide them with security. Women are not asking for any special concessions; they simply want equal opportunities. Sibal assured the bench that nothing would affect women's equality.

However, he said that not doing duty for more than 12 hours should not be made mandatory. On this, the bench said that the duty hours should be reasonable for all doctors. The court also questioned the government's decision to hire security personnel on contract to ensure the safety of doctors in the hospital. The Chief Justice said that the issue here is of the safety of doctors. How can the contract security personnel be trusted? The accused of brutality against the doctor is a person from Civil Defence.

The court said that the state police should be deployed for security. Sibal said that they are also thoroughly investigated. Apart from this, police and CRPF will be deployed there. To improve the security system, Sibal requested the junior doctors to return to work and also assured the court that if the doctors returned to work, no punitive action would be taken against them.

During the hearing, the issue of giving only 27 minutes of CCTV footage to the CBI also came up, but Sibal said that apart from this, the recording in a pen drive has been given to the CBI. Regarding the postmortem challan form, Sibal said that its use has been discontinued since 1997, although the state government follows the standard operating system issued by the Government of India and sends requisitions. The issue of postmortem challan was raised in the last hearing.