Sacked without reason, IAS officer drags AIIMS to court

PINK SLIP WOES: The IAS officer claims she was sacked because she opposed financial irregularities.

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Keywords: AIIMS, Rashmi Jain

New Delhi: There seems to be no end to controversies surrounding Union Health Minister Ramadoss and AIIMS.

A senior IAS officer has alleged she was terminated from the post of senior financial advisor to AIIMS for opposing financial irregularities well before her three-year tenure with the premier medical institute ended.

“In March, Rashmi Jain’s deputation was suddenly terminated without citing any reason. But in reality, there were three reasons. She had disagreed with the administration about three payments that they wanted to be made immediately,” Jain’s lawyer Prashant Bhushan claims.

Jain alleges she was asked by the health ministry to make an advance payment of more than Rs 10 lakh to AIIMS lawyer Mukul Gupta — the same man who had fought Health Minster Ramadoss' case against former director P Venugopal. She refused, saying such a large advance payment violated rules.

Jain also refused to release sacked AIIMS registrar V P Gupta's salary for the one year that his services remained terminated. Ramadoss brought Gupta back to AIIMS after Venugopal removed him last year.

AIIMS administration claims that her accusations are ill founded.

“There were some attitudinal problems with the last financial advisor, who was responsible for unduly withholding files and delaying their clearing. That is why utilisation certificates could not be provided. But the government has taken adequate action,” Medical superintendent AIIMS D K Sharma says.

After Jain was removed, the health ministry's Controller of Accounts has taken over and thus bringing the financial management of AIIMS directly under the health ministry.

With cases like this one piling up against the AIIMS, the institute is fast becoming a battleground between doctors on one hand and Ramadoss-endorsed administration on the other.