Medicos welcome SC ruling; bike rally on May 30

New Delhi, May 29: Medicos protesting the 27 per cent OBC quota in institutes of higher education welcomed today's Supreme Court notice asking the Centre to explain the basis for determination of OBCs, but made it clear they are in no mood to end their agitation.

Medical services remained crippled at the Maulana Azad Medical College, the University College of Medical Sciences and the Safdarjung Hospital here as faculty members went on mass casual leave.

The protestors have called a ''complete'' medical bandh in the capital on Wednesday. ''Even private hospitals and clinics would remain closed on Wednesday,'' Dr Anirudh Lochan, a spokesman for Youth For Equality, a group spearheading the protest, said.

The students will take out a ''bike rally'' through the capital tomorrow. It will start from the University College of Medical Sciences at around 1600 hrs and pass through various Medical Colleges before culminating at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

Another rally is scheduled at the Deendayal Upadhyay Hospital in the morning.

Welcoming the Apex Court decision, Dr Lochan said this was the ''first concrete and positive statement from any pillar of State on our demands''. He said the very basis for selection of castes -- on a census of 1931 -- for reservation was wrong.

The Apex Court ruling came at a time when the Government had failed to address the demands of the protestors, he said, adding that the Youth for Equality had not received any official note giving details about the Oversight Committee formed under former Karnataka Chief Minister and Administrative Reforms Commission Chairman Veerappa Moily.

''We want the Government to give us its commitments on paper.

We don't want to hear just promises,'' he said.

Though the 13-member Committee and its three separate sub-groups for Technological/Engineering Institutions, Management and Central Universities had been asked to examine various aspects related to increasing the number of seats in these institutions, ''our core demand remains unaddressed'', he said.

In related development, separate groups of students began a relay hunger strike in support of the agitation at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Faculty at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences have decided to undertake 24-hour hunger strike tomorrow in support of the agitation.

Meanwhile, the AIIMS administration cancelled interviews for recruitment of doctors to ensure delivery of health services. The step followed an assurance from the Government that it would not take action against the striking doctors, the protestors said.

UNI

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