Rajkot Collector H S Patel on Thursday tendered an unconditional apology before the Gujarat High Court (HC) for defying an earlier HC order by taking physical possession of a private trust run TB hospital in the district despite a HC order to maintain a status quo in the matter.

Patel assured the court of reversing his order of taking possession of the hospital against the HC order and hand it over to the trust.

According to case details, the petitioner trust A V Jasani TB Hospital Trust has been running a TB hospital in Kangshiyad village of the district on the land given by the revenue department.

After six of the trustees of the trust were changed, the Collector’s office objected to the same and in June 2008 the concerned Deputy Collector passed an order for taking possession of the land owing to alleged breach of condition on the part of the trust.

To this, the trust filed an appeal before the Collector challenging the order of the Deputy Collector. The Collector rejected the trust’s appeal and subsequently passed an order and granted the land to the Government Medical College in Rajkot. The trust challenged this order of the Collector in the HC.

The HC passed an order on September 30, 2008 and directed that if the petitioner files a Revision Application before the competent authority, the orders of Collector and the Deputy Collector shall remain stayed till the revision authority hears the revision application.

Following this, the trust officials informed the Collector of the HC order of maintaining the status quo until the revision application is pending before the competent authority.

... contd.