The AIIMS facility of Patna has given consent on the motion to terminate its faculty members for lacking basic qualifications at the time of their recruitment.
These members include Ajit Saxena, professor and head of the pathology department, Sushmita Das, associate professor in the microbiology department and Alok Ranjan, an assistant professor in the department of community and family medicine. One of them had even been promoted during the August-September 2017 assessment promotion scheme of the institution.
The government body of the institute made no comments on the decision it took on Thursday regarding the matter.
According to a media report, the matter goes back to 2011 when the institute advertised for faculty recruitment in December. However, the advertisement had clearly mentioned that the appointment required a PG degree recognised by the erstwhile Medical Council of India (MCI), now National Medical Commission (NMC). However, two of the faculty members only had postgraduate degrees in zoology, a non-medical subject, during their appointment in 2012-2013. Meanwhile, although Ranjan had the required qualification, he lacked a Ph.D. degree at the time of his recruitment.
Sources informed The Sunday Guardian that the assistant professor had fulfilled the required criteria within nine months of his joining (September 7, 2012) and submitted his Ph.D. degree from a USA-based university. However, the other two still lacked the required qualifications.
A total of 19 faculty members were scrutinised regarding the matter. Some of them criticized the penalty which they faced eight years after the fault committed by the Selection Committee, while a few have moved the court against the disciplinary action taken by the institute.
Sources informed that an IPS officer blew the cover of the terminated professors while Kishore Yadav, Deputy Director (Administration) of AIIMS-Patna, brought the matter to light in 2013.
Later, the Vikas Arya committee, constituted by the Union Health Ministry in 2014, also marked the appointments faulty. Finally, a five-member high-powered committee consisting of directors of AIIMS-Bhubaneswar and AIIMS-Patna also found the recruitment of the three members bogus.