The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice on a PIL filed by the faculty association of Lady Hardinge Medical College alleging that the faculty and administration of the Post-Graduate Institute for Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), associated with Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) hospital, consisted of non-teaching persons not qualified to hold positions of professors and associate professors. According to the plea, “a number of non-teaching faculty members across departments of PGIMER such as orthopaedics, ENT, paediatrics, radiology, dermatology and pathology were designated as ‘Assistant Professor/Associate Professor/Professor’ in June 2011 and 2013, infringing the eligibility criteria for such appointments as set forth in PGIMER, 2000 and the Minimum Qualifications for Teachers in Medical Institutions Regulations, 1998”. [related-post] Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed and Justice Sanjiv Sachdeva issued notice to the Delhi government, RML, GGSIP University, PGIMER and the Medical Council of India and will now take up the issue in May. The plea, filed through advocate Varun K Chopra, states that even the director of the medical college had been appointed from among the “same pool of non-teachers or equated teachers of PGIMER than officers from teaching sub-cadre of PGIMER”. The plea seeks court orders to recall the 2010 order of IP University, allowing non-teachers to be designated as professors and to stop increasing the number of seats in the college. Further, the PIL seeks orders to “discontinue the status of PGIMER for not having departments of basic medical sciences and anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and community medicine essential for establishing a post-graduate medical institution”.
