By IANS
New Delhi : Criticising both Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) director P. Venugopal for “ruining” the premier medical institute, the Delhi High Court Monday directed the minister to sign the degree certificates of 49 post graduate students within 24 hours to facilitate their going abroad for higher studies.
Expressing anguish at the state of affairs in the autonomous institute, which has seen an unsavoury controversy over the tussle between the director and the health minister, who is also the AIIMS president, Justice Ravinder Bhatt observed that the “two of them have ruined the institute”.
Justice Bhatt directed Ramadoss and Venugopal to coordinate with each other for the better interest of the students and patients.
The certificates of the students are to be flown to Chennai with the signatures of the AIIMS director, dean and registrar to obtain the sign of Ramadoss, who is on an official visit to the Tamil Nadu capital.
The court directed the AIIMS authorities to immediately forward the certificates to the minister’s office so that they could be sent to him by flight.
The degrees would be brought back Tuesday and be given to the students.
“The 49 degrees/certificates forwarded to the minister containing signature of Sandeep Aggrawal, the AIIMS registrar, shall be deemed to have been validly executed,” the court said.
Aggrawal’s appointment to the post had been a bone of contention between Ramadoss and Venugopal for the past one year. The matter is pending before the high court.
The court has recognised Sandeep Aggarwal as de facto registrar of AIIMS only for signing the degrees.
The court also said that senior students who require their degrees urgently may approach the AIIMS authorities for immediate issuance of their certificates.
About 700 senior students, who had done residency and post-graduation in the institute, are waiting to receive their degrees. The institute has not conducted a convocation for the past two years to give away certificates.
Earlier, Mukta Gupta, appearing for the minister, had pointed out that the Registrar’s appointment was illegal and any certificate bearing his name shall be deemed as invalid.
Ramadoss had said he would not sign the certificates as these were “illegal” as they carried the signature of Sandeep Aggarwal. He had maintained that Aggarwal could not sign the certificates as he was not appointed by the governing body of the institute.
The court observed that “innocent” students should not suffer because of the tussle between the government and AIIMS management over technicalities for issuing degrees.
Last week, resident doctors of the institute had gone on an indefinite strike to protest not getting their degrees, badly affecting the out patient department services in the hospital. The strike was withdrawn after the court intervened in the matter.