HC asks UP govt to submit details of Dr Kafeel Khan’s suspension in 2017

The court has asked the Uttar Pradesh government to submit an affidavit within two weeks with necessary facts about Dr Khan’s challenge to the suspension order of August 22, 2017.

During an earlier hearing on August 6, Additional Advocate General (AAG) Manish Goyal, arguing on behalf of the state, had told the court that a departmental re-inquiry ordered last year against Dr Khan has been withdrawn and that the government was likely to decide on his suspension in three months.

During the hearing on Tuesday, Goyal told the court that after Dr Khan was suspended on August 22, 2017, he was attached to the office of Director Medical Education.

The AAG said that “in respect of various incidents which occurred in that office, independent disciplinary proceedings were initiated against the petitioner, and in which orders of suspension were separately passed”.

He said that those proceedings are still to conclude and “the orders of suspension passed therein continue to hold the field”.
In his order, Justice Yashwant Varma said, “…these and other necessary facts insofar as the challenge to the order of 22 August 2017 is concerned be brought on the record by way of an affidavit to be filed within a period of two weeks”.

A petition filed by Khan had challenged his suspension in 2017 in connection with the death of several children due to alleged shortage of oxygen at a government hospital in Gorakhpur. On February 24 last year, the Disciplinary Authority ordered another inquiry against Khan — a move challenged by him in the court.

Last week, the state government informed the High Court that a departmental re-inquiry ordered last year against suspended Gorakhpur paediatrician Dr Kafeel Khan has been withdrawn.

The government is likely to decide on his suspension in three months, it said.