In a major relief to 8,573 contract nurses appointed in government medical institutions across the State, the Madras High Court on Tuesday ordered that they should be paid remuneration equal to that of regular nurses besides being offered other service benefits due to them.
A Division Bench of Justices R. Subramanian and P.T. Asha passed the orders on the basis of a comprehensive report filed before the court by its retired judges V. Parthiban and V. Bharathidasan who found the contract nurses to be performing the same work as that of regular nurses.
The Division Bench closed a contempt of court petition filed by the Tamil Nadu MRB (Medical Recruitment Board) Nurses (a term used to refer to nurses appointed on contract basis) Empowerment Association in 2019 against Health Secretary P. Senthilkumar for not complying with a 2018 directive.
After the filing of the contempt plea, the High Court had appointed a scrutiny committee comprising two of its retired judges to verify whether the contract nurses perform the same duties as that of regular nurses. The committee studied the issue in detail and answered the court in the affirmative.
The contract nurses were serving as the backbone of the healthcare system in the State but were denied equal pay as well as benefits such as maternity leave, it said. “In short MRB contract nurses have been meted out step motherly treatment, notwithstanding the fact that the same work / duties as that of the regular nurses have been extracted from them. As a matter of fact, calling them as ‘contract nurse’ is misnomer,” the scrutiny committee had told the court.
Recording its appreciation for the two retired judges and after directing the State government to pay them additional remuneration of ₹5 lakh each, the Division Bench directed the government to offer equal pay to the contract nurses within three months or end up facing the contempt proceedings once again.
Published – April 22, 2025 08:34 pm IST