In an interesting development, Delhi high court has issued a notice to health minister J P Nadda, in a public interest litigation case filed by Centre for public interest and litigation. The CPIL has prayed to the court to initiate enquiry in all the cases by the CBI which were started during the tenure of Sanjiv Chaturvedi as CVO of All India institute of Medical sciences (AIIMS).

A bench of chief justice G Rohini and justice R S Endlaw issued notice to CBI and Sanjiv Chaturvedi as well. The high court will further hear the matter on April 2.

The CPIL has brought to the notice several irregularities like supply of dubious medicines and severe corruption in purchase of surgery equipments fake propriety certificate, exam process, unauthorized foreign visits of senior faculty members, accepting hospitality from private medical colleges in violation of MCI Regulations, middlemen in making OPD cards in AIIMS. 

The CPIL has pointed out that a new vigilance administration was shown the door for taking action against corrupt elements involved in rampant corruption in AIIMS. It is on record that in two years of tenure of Chaturvedi was extraordinary and a record number of cases were taken up from July, 2012 to August, 2014.

The CPIL petition says that Nadda while being a member of parliament wrote four letters between May, 2013 to June, 2014 to dismantle the new vigilance setup but it thoroughly rejected by then Union Health Secretary on 23.05.2014.  But after the regime change when BJP Came to power the same request were accepted in August, 2014.

The CPIL has requested the court to initiate CBI investigation into 37 cases of irregularities, illegalities and corruption in AIIMS and demanded the court to direct Nadda to recuse from all the cases mentioned in para no. 15 of the petition from acting as disciplinary authority/appellate authority.