Medical students want judicial panel on quotas

Health services hit as nationwide stir gathers steam.

Medical students from five colleges here have demanded a judicial commission to assess if Dalits and OBCs need reservation even as they began an indefinite strike against the Centre's proposal to reserve seats for OBCs in higher education.

"We want a judicial probe to look into the reservation issue before any step is taken," Anmay Sharma, president of the students union of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences said.

Sharma, also the spokesman for Youth for Equality, the front formed by medical students against OBC quotas, said they did not want to meet Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh as he had already declared his intention of placing the quota proposal before the Cabinet and Parliament.

"What is the point in talking to him after he has already carried out what he wants?," he said. "We can talk to him only before the proposal goes to the Cabinet and not after that," he added.

Meanwhile, the health ministry today asked hospital authorities in Delhi not to turn back any patient. The ministry has asked the medical superintendents of hospitals affected by the strike to maintain essential services. Health Secretary P Hota reviewed the situation in Delhi's hospitals at a high-level meeting here.

"We have instructed the medical superintendents to make arrangements for doctors to be on duty. An emergency system has been created. Senior doctors and specialists have been pressed into service," an official said.

In Amritsar, nearly 150 medical students today went on a symbolic hunger against OBC quotas. Amritsar Medical Students' Association said the strike would last 12 hours daily. The operation theatres of all government hospitals would be forced to close down from tomorrow, it said.

Medical students in Karnataka and Orissa observed a strike today to protest police action against protesting students in Mumbai. Medical students in Gujarat will observe a strike tomorrow. The Indian Medical Association has demanded a judicial probe of the police action.

The state government had asked Mumbai Police Commissioner AN Roy to probe the cane-charge and submit a report within a week, Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said today.