Srinagar: Dr Kaiser Ahmad Kaul was on Friday given charge of the Principal Government Medical College Srinagar.
Dr Kaul, Head of Department of Pediatrics, GMC, was given the charge as an interim arrangement in consequence to the directions by the Jammu and Kashmir high court, according to an order passed by the Divisional Commissioner Kashmir Baseer Ahmad Khan.
The court on Tuesday had asked the Principal Secretary Health and Medical Education Department to inform it by today as to under whose authority and orders the present Dr Saima Rashid was continuing.
The court was hearing a contempt petition filed Dr. Javeed Chowdhry, seeking proceedings against the authorities for violation of the judgment. He says that the Government as per the judgment passed on February was obliged to make interim arrangement for the post with four weeks from the date of receipt of judgment and remove the present incumbent as her appointment has been quashed by the court.
Observing that arbitrariness is antithetic to equality, the court had quashed an order by the cabinet of erstwhile PDP-BJP government with Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti in the chair, appointing Saima Rashid and leaving out Javeed Chowdhary as Principal GMC Srinagar.
“We are constrained to intervene in the matter and therefore hold the Cabinet Decision and consequential Government order, impugned in the writ petition, bad in the eye of law and not sustainable,” the court had said while allowing an appeal filed by senior-most professor Javeed Chowdhary, challenging the appointment of Saima Rashid as the principal of the medical college.
“We have examined the whole record carefully and do not find any reason worth the name that has been recorded by the Cabinet in any corner of the contemporaneous record. The two-line decision to appoint respondent no.6 (Dr Saima Rashid) cannot be justified on any count, particularly when the Establishment-cum-Selection Committee, appointed by it, had on evaluation of whole record, recommended the appellant (Javeed Chowdhary) for appointment as Principal, GMC, Srinagar,” the court had said.
“The writ petition (SWP no.894/2017) is allowed and Cabinet Decision no.50/04/2017 dated 28th April 2017 and Government Order no.252-HME of 2017 dated 8th May 2017, impugned in the writ petition, are quashed,” the court with a direction to the authorities to place the whole material, consisting of minutes of the decision of the Establishment-cum-Selection Committee, before the Cabinet/State Administrative Council (SAC), as the case may be, for its reconsideration.
“Let the Cabinet/SAC take appropriate decision as may be warranted in light of the observations made by us herein above, within a period of four weeks from the date certified copy of this order becomes available to the respondents.”
Till such decision was taken by the Cabinet/SAC, the court had said it shall be open to the Government to make the incharge or temporary arrangement to run the day to day affairs of the office of the Principal, Government Medical College Srinagar.
The court reiterated that it was not for a minute holding or suggesting that the Cabinet could not have taken a decision independent of the recommendations of the Establishment-cum-Selection Committee, but, in doing so, it was constitutionally obliged to record its reasons for dissent with the recommendations of the Committee and for taking a decision independently on the basis of record placed before it.
