An NGO has filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking contempt proceedings against the Centre and Indian Medical Association (IMA) for alleged violation of its earlier 'order' with regard to doctors going on strike.

The top court had in November 2014 said: "We would only express our desire that the doctors, who carry out a noble service as God's agent by saving lives of people, should not resort to strikes with any intermittent cause but undertake their responsibility with efficiency and utmost sincerity at all times."

While the apex court made this observation, it had not restrained doctors from going on strike. The NGO, People for Better Treatment, through its president Kunal Saha, said that in spite of the repeated and clear calls from the highest court of the land, doctors across India have continued to resort to strike disrupting regular hospital services and bringing endless pain, suffering and death for the hapless patients.

It said that the alleged contemnors have "individually and collectively" violated the order passed by the top court in the month of June by going on strike. The petitioner-organization said it aims to bring a safe medical environment for vulnerable patients so that "they do not suffer and die due to deliberate disruption of hospital services by doctors who frequently resort to strike in order to satisfy their personal grievances against the government and/or hospital authorities".

It said: "That while doctors in West Bengal went on an indefinite doctors' strike last month, Indian Medical Association called a nation-wide doctors' strike on June 17, 2019 to demonstrate solidarity and in support of the striking doctors in West Bengal doctors. This IMA-initiated nation-wide doctors' strike on June 17, 2019 also crippled medical services across the country as widely reported by the media," it said.