Private practice by a government doctor cannot be construed as a criminal offence, and at the most, departmental action can be taken against him or her, the Supreme Court has held.
In a big relief to government doctors, a Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra said: “The demand for/receipt of fee while doing private practice by itself cannot be held to be illegal gratification as the same obviously is the amount charged towards professional remuneration. It would be preposterous, in our view, to hold that if a doctor charges fee for extending medical help and is doing that by way of his professional duty, the same would amount to illegal gratification as that would be against even plain common sense.”
No comments:
Post a Comment