SC favours medical board to buttress panel’s efforts

Bench asks Apollo to prepare a memo

The Supreme Court said orally on Thursday that it would safeguard the interests of Apollo Hospitals, and favoured constituting a medical board of experts from AIIMS to buttress the A. Arumughaswamy Commission of Inquiry’s efforts to gather facts on the death of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa at the hospital in 2016.

A Bench of Justices S. Abdul Nazeer and Krishna Murari asked the hospital, represented by senior advocate Aryama Sundaram and advocate Rohini Musa, to prepare a memo detailing what it wanted during the inquiry. The court said it would examine the memo and pass orders. The court asked the hospital to share a copy of its memo with the commission by Monday. It listed the case for Tuesday.

The hospital moved the court accusing the commission of bias, violation of the principles of natural justice and conducting the fact-finding exercise outside its jurisdiction. The commission, represented by senior advocate Ranjit Kumar, had denied the allegation of bias.

Mr. Sundaram had contended that the reputation of the premier Chennai hospital was “blighted overnight” by the commission, which took a tangent which was “unbelievable”.

The hospital had urged the court to direct the commission to share records and permit it to participate in the examination of witnesses.

The court orally advised the Tamil Nadu Government to provide the commission with a larger room for the hearings in order to accommodate the media and members of the prospective medical board.