AIIMS registrar to resume office

The Delhi High Court allowed the Registrar of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences to resume office for settling “personal” disputes, reports Naziya Alvi.

The Delhi High Court on Thursday allowed the Registrar of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to resume office.

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The order came as the court pulled up the hospital’s administration for coming to court for settling “personal” disputes.

“Court’s mechanism should not be used for personal purposes,” a division Bench of Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S Muralidhar said, while staying an earlier order of a single bench that had restrained VP Gupta, former informal Registrar, from joining AIIMS as Registrar.

The Bench further observed the ongoing dispute between the Director and the Registrar was a personal one that takes court’s valuable time as many people wait for justice.

AIIMS had on March 27 moved the court, seeking quashing of a single judge’s order that on February 28 stayed the then acting director’s decision to permit a former ad hoc Registrar to rejoin duty.

The counsel for AIIMS claimed the single judge ignored the fact the petitioners (doctors) had nothing to do with the matter involving the rejoining of Gupta from January 7 this year.

On February 28, putting a stay on the decision, Justice Anil Kumar said, “Gupta would not be permitted to join duty as Registrar till the court's further order”.

The court had also stayed the then acting Director Tirath Dass Dogra’s order for release of Gupta’s financial dues for the period March 6, 2007, to January 7, 2008) during which Gupta was not on duty as he was removed from the post by Director P Venugopal.