Lucknow, Nov. 12 -- The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has directed the Uttar Pradesh health department to take necessary steps to prohibit private practice by government doctors. The court also directed to ensure compliance with the 1983 rules in this regard. "....let the Director General, Medical Health & Family Welfare, Government of UP, Lucknow look into the matter, take all appropriate steps for preventing practice by government doctors in violation of the Uttar Pradesh Government Doctors (Allopathic) Restriction on Private Practice Rules, 1983 (in short 'the Rules, 1983')," the high court said. The high court also ordered an investigation into the death of a man in custody at the Tulsipur Community Health Centre in Balrampur district. The director general, health, will be required to submit the investigation report at the next hearing on December 21, 2026. A division bench of Justice Rajan Roy and Justice Manjive Shukla passed the order on November 5, which was uploaded recently, on a public interest litigation filed by Ankur Mishra, which raised the issues of private practice by government doctors and custodial deaths. "The opposite party no.2 shall specifically get an inquiry conducted about the said incident in light of the allegation made that the patient was locked at Community Health Centre, Tulsipur, Balrampur and he died as there was no doctor available in the said centre and submit a report by the next date. The aforesaid inquiries would be in the nature of fact-finding inquiry and if based thereon any illegalities are found then obviously further action would have to be referred to the competent authority," the court directed. The court said that the truth behind complaints about government doctors practising privately should be investigated. It also asked who is responsible for preventing this. The state government stated that disciplinary action was initiated against some doctors last year, and some were even suspended. The court directed that details of this be presented by the next hearing in the matter....