SC Allows Centre to Overtake Bhopal Trust Hospital
The Supreme Court has allowed the Centre to overtake the management of the Bhopal Memorial Hospital Trust which runs super-speciality treatment centres for the 1984 gas victims, said media reports.
In addition, the apex court accepted resignation tendered by former chief justice AM Ahmadi as the chairman of the Bhopal Memorial Hospital Trust, reports said.
According to PTI, a bench comprising Chief Justice SH Kapadia and Justices KS Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar permitted the Centre to initiate steps to wind up the trust and run the hospital.
Attorney General GE Vahanvati conveyed the decision of the Centre to take over the management of the hospital, said reports.
The government told the apex court that the department of bio-technology and the department of atomic energy would coordinate in the management of BMHT, strengthen and upgrade it and run it as a super-speciality research hospital for the benefit of gas disaster victims, said reports.
Former CJI AM Ahmadi, who was appointed the chairman of BMHT on May 15, 1998, had first written to then CJI KG Balakrishnan ten years later seeking to be relieved from the post.
He had reiterated his request in his June 20, 2009, letter, which is on the board of the Bench headed by CJI Kapadia on Monday.
BMHT has an interesting history. Pursuant to the SC orders, Union Carbide had set up a charitable trust in London on March 20, 1992 called ‘Bhopal Hospital Trust’ with Sir Ian Percival as its sole trustee.
The MP government had granted, free of cost, approximately 80 acres of land for the construction of the hospital. UCC extended limited financial support by sale of its shares and the Centre augmented it by waiving capital gains tax thereon.
Following the death of Percival, the ‘Bhopal Memorial Hospital Trust’ was established in accordance with the apex court’s orders in 1998 with ex-CJI Ahmadi as its chairman.
The Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre (BMHRC) became functional in July 2000. It has eight mini-centres. There are six hospitals, nine day-care centres, three Unani, three Homeopathic and three Ayurveda dispensaries run by BMHRC.
(Based on internet reports)
