Madras High Court Quashes Termination Orders of the Nurse in Madras

The New India Express in its report from Madurai published in the issue dated February 3, 2020, said that Justice J Nisha Banu had passed an order on the petition filed by a nurse T Blessie, with the observation that the inquiry held in the case was ‘discriminative’ in nature and was not conducted in a proper manner.

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court in its order directed the State government to reinstate the temporary staff nurse whose services were terminated on charges of ‘dereliction of duty’ while assisting in a delivery case that had allegedly led to the demise of a woman at PHC in Tirunelveli in 2009.

Justice J Nisha Banu passed the order on the basis of a petition filed by the ‘dismissed’ nurse, T Blessie, saying that the inquiry was conducted in a shoddy manner and was ‘discriminative’ in nature.

The judge observed “When an employee has denied the charge by way of a written explanation, the authorities concerned have no alternative, except for conducting a fair inquiry into the matter by providing sufficient opportunity to the employee to put up his/her point of view”

The judge added that the procedure also applied to the part-time employee, the petitioner in the case. The judge observed that the nurse had acted as per the instructions of the doctor on duty, who was still in service, observing that the nurse had been made a scapegoat in the case.