GAURAV BHATNAGAR: Whistleblower Officer Wins Tribunal Battle Against Health Minister, AIIMS Director
The Central
Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has served a severe indictment to union health
minister J.P. Nadda, who is also president of All India Institute of
Medical Sciences (AIIMS), and AIIMS director M.C. Misra. The
tribunal has quashed orders issued by them against whistleblower and
Indian Forest Service officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi for so-called “indiscipline,
insubordination and lack of work ethics”. Orders against Chaturvedi were in
violation of principle of natural justice, the tribunal said.
Chaturvedi, who won
the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2015 for exposing corruption, had complained to
the tribunal that the orders were motivated by “malice” and were issued without
a show cause notice or mentioning any specific instance. The officer’s
probation with AIIMS ended in June this year. He has been involved in a
protracted legal battle with the Narendra Modi government over the delay in
cadre change and denial of his probation to serve as officer on special duty to
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, who was eager to have him.
Chaturvedi had
contended that the order issued by Misra on January 7, 2016 was arbitrary as it
had been passed without giving him an opportunity to say his part. Also, the
order had threatened that its contents would considered in his annual
confidential report (ACR) for 2015-16.
Subsequently,
Chaturvedi had sent a representation to Nadda on January 11. On March 30, Nadda
rejected the representation.
His order said the
director of AIIMS had “placed on record his displeasure on (Chaturvedi’s)
insubordination, indiscipline and lack of work ethic”. Chaturvedi was then
deputy secretary of AIIMS. Nadda had pointed out that Chaturvedi had written to
Misra “threatening the administration that the memorandum may be withdrawn
failing which he would resort to appropriate legal proceedings against Director
and Deputy Director Administration in personal capacity for which the whole
responsibility would be that of Director AIIMS”.
Nadda said
Chaturvedi’s letter was examined by the institute in consultation with the
ministry and thereafter the representation was rejected. The health minister
also “upheld & reiterated the displeasure memorandum of the Director
AIIMS”. Challenging
Nadda’s order, Chaturvedi approached the CAT in April 2016. He asked the
tribunal to quash the orders of the AIIMS director and union health
minister against him. He also demanded that they be restrained from making an
entry into his ACR. He filed another miscellaneous application in June 2016, on
which the tribunal ordered that even if any entries are made into the officer’s
ACR, that will be subject to outcome of final decision. On August 17, the
tribunal finally quashed the orders of both Misra and Nadda and fixed the
hearing for September 9 on another prayer restraining them from writing the
ACR.
Persecuted for
exposing corruption?
The development
assumes significance as Chaturvedi had, in his original application filed
before the CAT, insisted that the director of AIIMS had made serious adverse
observations against him “without giving any opportunity of hearing to the
applicant, and without mentioning any reason at all, in blatant violation of
principle of natural justice”. He had noted that the order was “so much
arbitrary that it does not even mention the specific orders/instructions of
higher authorities defied by the applicant for which the observations regarding
so called indiscipline and subordination were made, putting the entire career
of the applicant at great risk…”
Chaturvedi had stated
that “these orders have not only tried to taint the unblemished and outstanding
service record of the applicant, for which he was even conferred
prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award being the youngest civil servant to get
this award”, but had also placed him at a very disadvantageous position
regarding the future periodical review of his service record, also for his
selection to sensitive posts and his impending promotion.
The officer has had
run-ins with the Haryana government, the AIIMS administration and the Modi
government because of his ability to speak up against corruption. He had also
charged that Nadda, Misra and the deputy director (administration) of AIIMS, V.
Srinivas, were targeting him because of “extreme personal mala fide” for
“exposing their corruption by the applicant, the most immediate provocation
being the affidavit filed by the applicant against the respondents, on 05.01.2016
before Hon’ble Delhi High Court in CWP-1815/2015 (regarding corruption cases of
AIIMS)”.
Chaturvedi had stated
that the affidavit had contained a recent report of the Central Bureau of
Investigation which had specifically indicted Misra “for his corrupt role in
purchases of trauma center of the institute”. Similarly, Chaturvedi
had charged before the CAG that Nadda, “even before assuming the charge of
President, AIIMS”, was persistently writing not only for his removal as chief
vigilance officer of AIIMS, but “also for action against him and most
outrageously for halting all the corruption related enquiries initiated by him,
and in all his letters, written for the said purpose he not only concealed
all the statutory approvals for appointment of applicant as CVO but also
commitment given to the parliamentary committee by Health Ministry for the
same, though he himself was a member of the committee”.
In the past two years,
Chaturvedi said, these “respondents have been repeatedly indicted not only by
CBI but also by Parliamentary Committee and proceedings against them
are pending before Delhi High Court and in lower courts against their
corrupt acts”.
