HC gives ‘final chance’ to UP govt to file reply on Dr Kafeel Khan’s plea against sacking

Justice Rajan Roy in an order on Monday observed, “If a counter-affidavit is not filed by the respondents before the next date of hearing then the court shall proceed to hear and decide the matter taking the petition as correct.” The case has been listed for hearing in the second week of January.

The petition filed by Kafeel was first heard by the HC’s Lucknow Bench on February 3 last year. Challenging his termination order dated November 9, 2021, Kafeel alleged he had been made a scapegoat even as he committed no “illegality or irregularity” that could be construed as misconduct under the Uttar Pradesh Government Conduct Rules, 1965.

He also said that from the time of initiation of departmental proceedings, till the stage of the termination from service, his petitions “based on facts and law as also reasonableness” have been “completely ignored by the respondents”.

Besides the government, which was made a party in the petition through the Department of Medical Education, the UP Food Safety and Drug Administration, the Director General of Medical Education and Training, and the Principal of the Baba Raghav Das Medical College and Hospital, Gorakhpur, were made respondents in the case.

In the recent FIR, Manish Shukla, a Lucknow resident, claimed that he overheard some people abusing the state government, its ministers, senior officers and having a telephonic conversation about overthrowing the government by inciting riots. “They were saying that Dr Kafeel Khan has published a book secretly which is being distributed in the state and that money was is being collected secretly,” read the complaint.

In the complaint, Shukla also claims that the book falsely held the UP government led by Yogi Adityanath responsible for the Gorakhpur hospital tragedy.

Khan first hit the headlines after the 2017 tragedy at the BRD Medical College, where several children died due to a lack of oxygen cylinders. While he was hailed as a saviour for arranging emergency oxygen cylinders, he faced action along with nine other doctors and staff members over misconduct in their duty. All were released on bail.

Speaking to The Indian Express over the phone on Tuesday, Khan said the fresh case against him was “completely fictitious”. “The allegations are absurd. I wrote a book, which is available on Amazon. I have not been in UP for years. How can I be accused of these things when I am not there?” he said.

He also said his family members, including his elderly mother, have started worrying after the case was lodged. “My family has already suffered enough. Now, they are worried again that I will be arrested,” he said.

Khan was first arrested on September 2, 2017, after a case was lodged in Lucknow on a complaint from the UP Director General (Medical Education and Training). The case was in connection with the oxygen shortage-triggered deaths in BRD Medical College in August 2017. After he spent seven months in jail, he was released on bail on April 25, 2018.

In 2018, he was booked and arrested by the Bahraich police for allegedly creating a nuisance at the district hospital. He was later granted bail, and then Gorakhpur police arrested him and his brother Adeel Ahmed for allegedly opening a bank account in a nationalised bank using fake documents. The police had said the accused had made transactions of Rs 2 crore through the account opened in 2009.

On October 3, 2019, the state government said that seven allegations against the paediatrician were being investigated. “Dr Khan was found guilty of the incident and four departmental inquiries were recommended against him,” the government had said. Two allegations against Khan that have been proven to be true are “serious corruption charges and violation of rules”, it added.

Then Khan was arrested on January 29, 2020, for allegedly making a “provocative speech” at Aligarh Muslim University during the protests against the Citizen Amendment Act (CAA). He was charged under the National Security Act (NSA) in February that year with his detention extended twice.

In September 2020, the Allahabad High Court had ruled that Khan’s address to students at AMU during the anti-CAA protests was “a call for national integrity and unity”, and not “any effort to promote hatred or violence”. The court set aside his detention under the NSA and ordered the UP government to release him “forthwith”.

In its order, the court described the detention order under the NSA as “bad”, and based on “selective reading and selective mention of few phrases from the speech ignoring its true intent”. The court also pointed to the two-month gap between the speech and the NSA charge, and that the order to extend the detention was not given to Khan.

The speech in question was delivered by Khan when he and political activist Yogendra Yadav addressed a gathering of AMU students who were protesting against the CAA and proposed the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The UP government had challenged the High Court order in the apex court, which in December 2020, refused to interfere with the HC order. “It seems to be a good order. We see no reason to interfere with the High Court order,” the Supreme Court had said.