With the crucial two-and-a-half-hour meeting between Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the agitating junior doctors ending on a “positive note” the State Government is likely to announce “some very important decisions” pertaining to the doctors’ demands on Tuesday, sources said.

The agitating doctors had been demanding justice for the lady doctor of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital who was raped and murdered in the morning of August 8.

Though the doctors had not come out of the meeting venue as minutes were still being written, sources privy to the proceedings said that the doctors had “vividly communicated to the Chief Minister” their demand including administrative actions against the erring officials of the Health Department including the Health Secretary and two directors of Health apart from Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal.

The Government side told the doctors that as certain decisions including those on administrative actions against the senior officials could be taken only after certain procedures, such issues could be addressed subsequently.

On whether the doctors who had been on “cease work” would join duty right away was not made clear as the sources from the doctors’ side said that the delegation would speak to the media after a general body meeting that would take place around midnight at the sit-in site near Swasthya Bhavan Government. They however, said the “meeting has taken place in a very cordial atmosphere and both the sides were eager to cooperate.”

Earlier, the junior doctors on Monday evening reached Chief Minister’s residence. This was hours after the Mamata Banerjee Government tried for “one last time” to break the 36-day impasse and offered a “constructive dialogue.”

The medics had been asking for punishment for those responsible for the August 9 felony and “destruction” of evidence; departmental action against arrested former RG Kar principal Sandip Ghosh; resignation of Kolkata Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal and Health Secretary NS Nigam; improved security for healthcare workers; and eradication of the ‘threat culture’ in Government hospitals allegedly perpetrated by a political lobby that indulges in mass cheating, extraction, victimisation, smuggling of bodies, corruption etc.

In the meeting which was a prolonged one “security related issues in the State’s medical colleges were being discussed in the initial phase,” sources said. “It is still early days and will take a good time to end as the discussions have just started … there are many points and counterpoints that were raised and heard,” said an official.

The modalities of the talks hinged on a proposal of mutual exchange of minutes of the meeting as against the live streaming — or alternatively videography — of the proceedings as earlier demanded by the doctors, sources said.

“There is a hearing on the issue in the Supreme Court tomorrow and I want a solution before that … we have offered talks for one last time so that the doctors can go back to work as health services are getting hampered … more so because we have a flood-like situation emerging and the doctors’ services will be required … no side can sit and watch the people suffer like this … so I asked the Chief Secretary to invite the doctors so that we can come to a solution,” the Chief Minister said.

When asked as to whether she was expecting a solution immediately she said, “I expect a solution … the two sides should seat with an open mind and iron out the issues.”

Talks had twice fizzled out after the doctors demanded live-steaming or at least videography of the proceedings to which the Government denied permission. Subsequently the doctors demanded exchange of signed copies of minutes of the talks on Saturday to which the Government agreed but by the time two sides agreed upon issues it was too late and the doctors had to return to their sit-in site.

On Monday morning, a letter from the Chief Secretary Manoj Pant came to invite the doctors for talks to which they agreed but with a condition that they would have to be allowed in with two professional stenographers to record the minutes.

Meanwhile in a related development the RG Kar issue tended to affect the Kolkata Police force too after the CBI arrested Abhijit Mondal, the SHO of the Tala Police Station for his alleged complicity in destroying evidence at the place of occurrence.

Junior officers approached the senior IPS officials demanding immunity from the complex situations arising in their places of work in the recent days.

“We are caught between twiddledum and twiddledee … we cannot ignore senior officers and if some pressure mounts, junior officers are held responsible for that … this has to be addressed by the top officials,” said an official who met top police official.

They were led by a retired ACP, and demanded help to fight the legal battle for Mondal. “the lower rank officials across the Kolkata Police will raise funds to fight the case for Abhijit Mondal because he has been caught in the mess,” said an ACP.

Senior IPS officers led by V Solomon Nesakumar, a Kolkata Additional Commissioner of Police on Monday met the family members of Mondal at his residence and assured support.

“We met the family of Abhijit Mondal. We spoke with his wife and informed her that the department stands by them like a family and will provide all support,” Nesakumar told reporters.