Explain show cause notices served to 17 Medical Faculty: CAT to AIIMS Patna

Patna: The All India Institute of Medical Sciences, PATNA has been questioned by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) as to why the show cause notices served on the 17 teachers four years after the submission of the inquiry report should not be quashed.

The notices were served in 2012, as an outcome of the report submitted by the Vikash Arya Inquiry Committee, (set up by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare), meant to probe the anomalies in the AIIMS- Patna teacher appointments, made in response to an advertisement in 2011.

The committee found the appointed faculty ineligible for the posts and submitted its report in 2014.

The notices were served to the 17 teachers, this year, after the AIIMS-P Director received a written intimation, dated February 26, 2018, from the Union Ministry for termination of the 17 faculty members through proper procedure.

Telegraph reports that 13 doctors were served notices by the AIIMS-Patna administration on March 14 and 15. These include: Dr. Anil Kumar (general surgery department- trauma and emergency wing), Dr. Ravi Kirti (medicine), Dr. Meenakshi Tewari (pathology and laboratory medicine), Dr. Ayan Banerjee (biochemistry), Dr. Nishant Sahay (anaesthesiology), Dr. Kamlesh Jha (physiology), Dr. Veena Kumari Singh (plastic surgery). The committee had questioned these appointments on the basis of lack of requisite qualification, age, degree, and experience.

However, the Patna bench (CAT), Judicial Member, J Bhairava and Administrative Member, Justice Anil Kumar Upadhyay, Patna High Court stayed the show-cause notices, seeking a reply from AIIMS-P in two weeks, as to why the notices served four years after the submission of the inquiry report, should not be cancelled.

The CAT is responding to an application filed by Dr. Ajit Kumar Saxena, one of the 17 teachers in question, who also received a show cause notice. The applicant Dr Saxena had alleged that the Arya Committee had submitted its report without bothering to take a feedback from the affected teachers. He also confirmed that notices have been served after four years have elapsed, from the date of report submission reports

TOI.

"The tribunal sought to know why all of a sudden action has been taken against the petitioner in 2018. The tribunal also asked why the show-cause notice by the AIIMS-petitioner not be quashed on these grounds."

According to Advocate, Vinay Kumar Pandey, the AIIMS, Patna Counsel, the matter would come up for hearing on April 6.