By IANS
New Delhi : The government appears to be having no qualms in hitting eminent cardiologist P. Venugopal below the belt, while defending a law allegedly enacted to oust him as director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
“The law fixing 65 as the age of retirement for the AIIMS director was in no way aimed at besmirching the image of Dr. Venugopal, who served AIIMS for several years and has a worldwide reputation.
“But it’s also a fact that for last several years, he did not perform a single heart surgery owing to his own ill-health as he often needed help from others to move around,” the health ministry said in affidavit filed before the Supreme Court in defence of the controversial law.
The affidavit made this remark to counter Venugopal’s assertion in his petition to the Supreme Court that the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, and Post Graduate Institute for Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh (Amendment) Act, 2007, was enacted solely to oust him from the institute after tarnishing his reputation.
The 78-page affidavit, filed by Health Secretary Naresh Dayal, contended that as the law also fixed the retirement age for the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) director, it could not be said that it was targeting Venugopal.
The health ministry said that the cardiologist’s assertion that the law was a brainchild of Health Minister A. Ramadoss and was enacted with the sole motive to sack him (Venugopal) was patently wrong.
“The law was passed by parliament and reflected the will and wishes of the parliament and not that of a single individual, the health minister,” said the affidavit adding it was parliament’s decision to fix 65 years as the retirement age of the AIIMS and PGIMER directors and it was parliament’s decree which has resulted in Venugopal’s retirement.
The affidavit said Venugopal had levelled a host of allegations in his petition against Ramadoss without making him the respondent in the petition.
Venugopal’s failure to make Ramadoss a respondent in his petition deprives the minister the opportunity to respond to the allegations against him and adds to the petition the legal defect of non-rejoinder, making it liable to be dismissed summarily on this ground, said the affidavit.
The affidavit also refuted Venugopal’s allegations that the law was enacted with retrospective effect only to target him.
The affidavit contended that Venugopal ceased to be the AIIMS director only after President Pratibha Patil assented to the law on Nov 30 and so it cannot be said that the law was enacted with retrospective affect.
Denying Venugopal’s allegations that the law negated the ruling by the Delhi High Court on the dispute between him and the government, the affidavit asserted that the law was enacted as per the directions in the ruling, which asked the government to enact an appropriate law to fix the retirement age of the AIIMS director.
Citing a host of apex court rulings, the affidavit asserted that it was parliament’s prerogative to enact a law to fix the age of retirement of government servants.
The apex court will hear later this month Venugopal’s petition challenging the law which paved the way for his ouster as AIIMS director.