Fifteenth day: Health Secretary’s extra intern offer fails, and a lunch-motion PIL lands before the Chief Justice, adjourned to Tuesday.

Monday was the fifteenth day. The extra intern offer did not land, and a lunch-motion public interest litigation landed before the Chief Justice.

On Monday, 24 August 2026, another round of talks between Health Secretary G. Veerapandian and Andhra Pradesh Junior Doctors’ Association representatives failed to make headway. The doctors, on the first public account of that evening, refused the government’s proposal. A silent protest by the Association was photographed at Siddhartha Medical College, Vijayawada, the same day. The strike, on that account, continued on the fifteenth day. The Association had not issued its own word on Monday’s discussions at the time of that filing.

The stipend arithmetic must be kept as two desks wrote it. It will not be merged.

On the first public account, health officials proposed an additional 5 per cent hike for Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery interns, on top of the 5 per cent previously proposed for them. There was no change in the stipend hike proposed for junior doctors and senior residents. The same account recapped the previous round as a 5 per cent annual increase for interns for the current year and 3 per cent for senior residents and junior doctors. Doctors had refused that earlier proposal, asking how the government could reduce the existing stipend model from a 15 per cent increase every two years to a 3 per cent annual hike. When the government appealed to them to reconsider a 30 per cent biennial hike, citing financial constraints, the doctors lowered their demand from 30 per cent to 20 per cent.

A second public desk the same night wrote a different intern and postgraduate line: a 10 per cent intern hike, an earlier assured 3 per cent for postgraduate and super-speciality students, a rejection of the 10 per cent offer, and a 13 per cent demand. The Health Secretary appealed to them to call off the stir. That desk dated the talks after junior doctors boycotted emergency services from 17 August.

This desk records both lines and will not collapse them. An additional 5 per cent on a previous 5 per cent is not the second desk’s 10 per cent. A 20 per cent demand is not 13 per cent. A fifteenth-day strike clock is not an emergency boycott from 17 August. Both clocks stay labelled.

The High Court file is separate and is live today. A two-judge Bench of Chief Justice Lisa Gill and Justice Challa Gunaranjan heard a lunch-motion public interest litigation by social activist Guduri Venkata Ravindra Kumar challenging the stir. The court sought details of steps to resolve it and how emergency healthcare was being managed, and issued notices to the Association. Petitioner’s counsel Y. Tagore said emergency services were affected and that doctors were taking up to four hours to attend emergency cases. Directions were sought to prevent disruption of emergency and critical care, operation theatres and intensive care units.

Advocate-General Dammalapati Srinivas told the Bench the government was holding talks, and that accepting the demand would impose an annual financial burden of ₹89 crore on the State exchequer. ₹89 crore is the Advocate-General’s figure to the court on this card. After hearing both sides, the court adjourned the case to Tuesday, 25 August 2026. Tuesday’s listing is live today.

A third public desk, labelled only for this extra line and not merged, said the petitioner was from Singarayakonda in Prakasam district, that counsel Y. Tagore Yadav sought invocation of the Emergency Services Act, that the Advocate-General said talks were on and emergency services were being protected, and that the High Court asked for a report on steps to end the strike. The second desk does not use the Emergency Services Act line. This desk records that conflict and will not write the Act into the High Court order.

This is a Monday talks-fail plus a High Court public interest litigation. It is not a reprint of earlier week-without-emergency or King George Hospital blindfold cuttings. No new government order sits on these cards.

Vijayawada holds the Secretariat talks, Siddhartha Medical College and the High Court listing. Form B and any poll date are not notified.

Until Tuesday’s Bench sits, the public ledger is a failed Monday round; a fifteenth-day count on one desk and an emergency boycott from 17 August on another; intern arithmetic written as additional 5 per cent on a previous 5 per cent versus 10 per cent; a doctors’ demand written as 20 per cent versus 13 per cent; a 3 per cent line for junior doctors and senior residents on the first desk and for postgraduate and super-speciality students on the second; an Advocate-General burden of ₹89 crore; and a lunch-motion public interest litigation adjourned to Tuesday. The numbers stay apart. The emergency gap remains the public-interest file.