Author: Editorial
Publication: The Free Press Journal
Date: July 28, 2006
URL: http://www.samachar.com/features/280706-editorial.html
Before he heaps further ignominy on the Government, the least that is expected of the Prime Minister is to move the Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss to another department. By mulishly carrying on a personal vendetta against Dr. P. Venugopal, the well-respected head of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the minister has forfeited any right to continue in his present charge.
Indeed, in normal times if the Prime Minister was his own boss, and not a prisoner of several masters outside the government, he would have given the marching orders to this errant member of his Cabinet long, long ago.
For, Ramadoss became an embarrassment to the Government from the moment he was appointed the Health Minister. Stories of his arrogance and misuse of the facilities of the country's premier research and referral medical institution are a legion. Even the errand boys in his personal staff sought to lord over widely-respected doctors, and allegedly misused the finances of the premier institution.
But matters seemed to have reached a point of no return following the recent rebuff to the Government by a bench of the Delhi High Court. Dr Ramadoss clearly did not know how to cut his losses and run. Instead of accepting the order of the single-judge, who had quashed the arbitrary and wholly unlawful dismissal of Dr Venugopal, the Minister insisted on challenging that decision before a multi-member bench.
He was soundly rebuffed again when the two-member bench duly upheld the earlier decision which had found his dismissal ultra vires. In fact, several members of the governing council were quoted in the media to the effect that the ministry had not taken their consent while challenging the earlier decision of the Delhi High Court.
In other words, the Ministry had resorted to a fraud insofar as it had relied on the governing council's recommendation even though it had not met to take any decision in this regard.
Sadly enough, Ramadoss refuses to learn any lessons from the repeated judicial rebuffs. Instead of accepting with good grace the court's decision, he has publicly committed himself to carry on his vendetta against Dr Venugopal. He has now claimed that at the end of the monsoon session of parliament he would resume hostilities against the AIIMS director in order to ease him out of that post.
Before he does that, the onus to ease him out of the Health Ministry lies squarely with Manmohan Singh. But can our gentleman PM muster some strength and straightforwardness to end the humiliation of one of the leading cardio-thoracic surgeons?
Is that what is clear to everyone else in the country not clear to the PM that his Health Minister is degrading the institutional autonomy of the country's best known medical research institute? If financial integrity alone is the criteria for holding on to the prime ministerial `gaddi', Manmohan Singh will be surprised to know that in every nook and cranny of this country there are men and women who have not spoken a lie all their lives, who have not cheated anyone of a paise.
Nor have they networked for wangling posts and assignments far in excess of their intellectual achievements. But it would be foolish for anyone to make one of them prime minister merely on account of their financial integrity. Without being loyal to some cardinal principles of good governance, the PM cannot but inflict further pain on the country.
After the sorry mess the Health Minister has created under his charge, the minimum expected of Manmohan Singh ought to be done. Otherwise, it would furnish further evidence that he clings to office even while he knows he can do no good.