HC pulls up doc for ''delaying tactics'' on AIIMS plea

New Delhi, August 24

The Delhi High Court criticised AIIMS forensic department head Sudhir Kumar Gupta on Monday for not serving the copy of his reply to the institute and other parties, accusing him of ‘delaying’ the proceedings on a plea seeking his replacement.

"Counsel for petitioner (AIIMS) says that he has not received the copy of reply which has been filed by the respondent (Gupta). It has been found that copy of reply was posted at the address of AIIMS, which appears to be a delaying tactics on the part of respondent," a Division Bench of Justices GS Sistani and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal said.

Gupta claims he was unfairly being replaced after he refused to act “unprofessionally” in the Sunanda Pushkar autopsy case.

"Earlier, the convention adopted by the institute in replacing the head of a department was that either the incumbent was unavailable or he or she resigns from the post, only in those cases a new person was appointed," Gupta's counsel Senior Advocate Amarendra Sharan said.

Gupta also claimed Dr DN Bhardwaj, whose has been appointed the new head of the Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Department is being sought by AIIMS, was incompetent.

"He (Bhardwaj) has Parkinson's disease and he is the person who has left a bullet during an autopsy of victim in a Ponty Chadha case," Sharan alleged.

To this, the bench said: "May be his Parkinson's is at an initial stage. That can't be ground enough for not allowing a person to be a head of department."      

The bench will now hear the case on September 3.

On July 1, the court had sought Gupta's response on a plea by AIIMS seeking its permission to appoint Bhardwaj to the position Gupta had previously held.

The court had ordered the institute to seek its permission before replacing Gupta in March after Gupta challenged Central Administrative Tribunal’s (CAT) decision rejecting his charge that one Dr OP Murty was promoted over him only for securing a "tailor-made report" in the sensational murder case of Sunanda Pushkar Tharoor.

Gupta had also claimed that AIIMS had done so to punish him for refusing to act “unprofessionally” in the autopsy matter.

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had also filed an application seeking court's permission to be heard in the case.

Absolving former union minister and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor of the charge of any wrong-doing, CAT had said: "The email sent by Shashi Tharoor, the then Union Minister, to Dr Rajiv Bhasin, on January 26, 2014, and the notice dated June 2, 2014 issued by Dr Adarsh Kumar, Member Secretary, Medical Board, AIIMS, do not reveal anything to show that any pressure was put on the applicant to submit a tailor-made autopsy report in Sunanda Pushkar's case". PTI