HC tells AIIMS to serve notices,copies of petition to 91 doctors

After petitioner Sarman Singh,a professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine of AIIMS,asked the court to direct AIIMS to serve the notices and copies of the petition to the 91 doctors,the bench sought a reply from the institute in this regard.

On Tuesday,the AIIMS counsel submitted that the institute had difficulties in doing so,and the petitioner should carry out the task because he was working in AIIMS and probably knew the respondents. To this,Justice Misra asked him where the doctors were sent on deputation,as claimed by AIIMS on a previous date. The court,however,received no response.

“Why are you shying away from serving notices and petitions to your doctors?” the court asked.

Appearing for the petitioner,advocates Prashant Bhushan and Barun K Sinha accused AIIMS of trying to delay the proceedings. “The court must appreciate that if the petitioner succeeds,the initial appointments and promotions will be held illegal. If their appointments are judged to be legally flawed,something would also have to be done to recover the money paid to them,” the lawyers argued.

The court then ordered AIIMS to serve the notices and copies of the petition to the doctors within four weeks of receiving the copies from the court registry.

Singh wants the court to quash the appointment of 164 assistant professors,allegedly made on an ad-hoc basis in violation of rules,besides their “illegal” regularisation and promotion as associate professors. The petition claimed that a large number of the appointees did not fulfill eligibility conditions at the time of their ad-hoc appointment between 1995 and 2000. However,in the name of staff shortage had regularised the appointments.

The petitioner also highlighted that though the plea of these ad hoc doctors for regularisation was dismissed by the High Court in 2001,AIIMS went ahead and gave ad-hoc professors regular jobs.

Though the High Court had dismissed Singh’s petition on technical grounds in 2004,the Supreme Court directed it to examine the matter afresh as a PIL three years later.