By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Monday appointed a former Bombay High Court judge as joint administrator of Mumbai’s Lilawati Hospital, which is caught in an ownership dispute between family members of the hospital’s late founder Kirtilal Manilal Mehta.
A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice R.V. Raveendran appointed Justice A.A. Halbe as the hospital’s joint administrators in place of Dr K. Ramamurthy, the hospital’s senior consultant, who had sought the apex court’s permission to quit his duty as hospital administrator owing to ill health.
Ramamurthy had been appointed administrator March 26 by the apex court to supervise the day to day functioning of the hospital.
The hospital is run by the Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust (LKMMT), which was formed by Manilal Mehta in 1978 in the name of his ancestor.
The hospital, however, was caught in an ownership dispute when Manilal Mehta’s son Kishore Kirtilal Mehta and a trustee of the LKMMT approached the apex court alleging that his brother Vijay Mehta had forged documents to take control of the charitable Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai.
Kishore alleged in the petition that Vijay claimed to be a permanent trustee of LKMMT by fabricating the trust documents (minute book, resolution and three letters) so as to “oust him (Kishore)”.
Pending adjudication of the dispute, the apex court had appointed Ramamurthy as the joint administrator of the hospital March 26.