Panel constituted to probe criminal-doctor nexus in JJ

The Indian Express had carried a series of reports under the title, `Nefarious doctors make J J Hospital a haven for those wanting to escape the law’s long arm’ exposing the nexus between criminals and a section of doctors at the hospital. The manner in which the hospital had admitted and discharged undertrials clearly indicated a link between criminals and doctors.

At least in half a dozen cases it wasconfirmed that the criminals admitted to the Department of Cardiology were either discharged or they managed to run away on the day they were granted bail. Incidentally, all these patients were admitted in the unit headed by Lekha Pathak, Professor and Head of the Department of Cardiology.

The alliance government had appointed a high-level committee on October 8, 1997 and one Dr Shirahatti, Head of Department of Pharmacology, KEM hospital, was appointed as its chairman. However, later it was found that no person of such name and designation was employed with KEM hospital. When this anomaly was brought to the notice of Chief Minister Manohar Joshi, he intervened and asked the Medical Education Department to reconstitute the committee.

The reconstituted committee will now examine the records of undertrials admitted to the J J Hospital between January 1990 and September 1997.“The Maharashtra Medical Council is already conducting a probe into the contents of reports published by The Indian Express.The government has also taken them seriously and therefore the committee has been reconstituted,” an official order issued by Deputy Secretary (Medical Education) Sadashiv Shivdas stated.

The committee has been asked to record its opinion on: if the admissions of undertrials were on merit; whether their stay at the hospital was on merit and whether the tests recommended for them were justified. The committee will also try to find out as to who recommended the undertrials to the J J Hospital; names of the doctors who treated them; whether they were treated at a police or local hospital before being referred to the J J Hospital and if adequate police bandobust was provided to them while being shifted to the hospital.

This will be the second committee to probe into the Doctor-Criminal nexus. A two-member committee comprising Home Secretary G C Tripathi and Medical Education Secretary T C Benjamin recently inquired into the escape of notorious criminal Phiroze Konkani from the J J Hospital. The committeehas already submitted its report to Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde.