Click to play videoNew Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday gave a temporaray breather to AIIMS director P Venugopal by ruling that any adverse action like termination of his services would be subject to the final outcome of the writ petition pending in the matter.
Justice P Anil Kumar, however, permitted the institute to go ahead with its scheduled meeting later on Wednesday.
A crucial meeting of the 17-member decision-making body of the AIIMS was scheduled to discuss specific charges against Venugopal relating to "failures and mismanagement" in the functioning of the institute.
The body had last met on July 5 when it had sacked Venugopal. The High Court had later put a stay on that decision.
The court, while reserving its order on Venugopal’s application, had questioned the manner in which Venugopal was removed from his post but said that he could be sacked if proper procedure is followed.
Justice Anil Kumar reserved the order after hearing the nearly five hours arguments presented before him by Venugopal's counsels and the counsels representing the Centre and the AIIMS.
Senior Counsel Arun Jaitely and Advocate Maninder Singh appearing for Venugopal had argued that the scheduled meeting was illegal as it was convened without proper notice and had a one point agenda of terminating the director's services due to his differences with the Health Minister A Ramadoss.
However, Additional Solicitor General P P Malhotra, Senior Counsel P N Lekhi and Advocate Mukul Gupta appearing for the Union Government and the AIIMS persisted with the arguments that the director needs to be shown the door for the alleged collapse of the institute's administration.
They also forcefully argued that the director's continuance in office was untenable as he had already completed the superannuation period of 62 years.
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Venugopal has been associated with AIIMS for 48 years. He joined the institute in 1959 as an undergraduate, did his post-graduation from AIIMS and has been associated with it ever since. He had joined AIIMS as a faculty member in 1970. He is one of India's top most cardiac experts and most recognised surgeon at AIIMS. He also performed the first heart transplant in India in 1994.
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