Chennai: The Madras high court has held that the Justice A. Arumugham Commission of Inquiry, appointed to inquire into the circumstances and situation leading to the hospitalisation of the demised chief minister J.Jayalalithaa and the subsequent treatment given to her till her demise on December 5, 2016, can venture into the appropriateness, adequacy or inadequacy of the treatment given by the Apollo hospitals based on the available medical records.
A division bench comprising Justices R.Subbiah and Krishnan Ramaswamy gave the finding while disposing of a petition from Apollo hospitals. “We are of the view that the Justice Arumugham Commission of Inquiry is empowered and is entitled to go into the appropriateness, efficacy, adequacy or inadequacy of the treatment given by the petitioner hospital to the CM of the State, as mandated by the government under the terms of reference. The relief sought for by the petitioner hospital to forbear the Commission from venturing into the medical aspects cannot be countenanced”, the bench added.
Referring to the contention of the petitioner that the composition of the one man commission was bad, the bench said it was for the state government to decide as to what exactly their requirement was and depending upon their requirement, they can appoint either a one man commission of inquiry or a commission consisting of experts in the field. “When such being the case, we cannot interfere with the appointment of the commission of inquiry and direct the government to include professionals or experts on board to assist the One Man Commission of Inquiry”, the bench added.
“Even though several averments have been made by the petitioner to demonstrate the inquiry proceedings were actuated by malice or biased, we are not inclined to consider the same in these petitions At the same time, we find that an innocuous and strange procedure had been adopted by the commission in filing an application through its counsel before itself or in fling a counter statement for the application filed by the petitioner before itself”, the bench added.
The bench said, “We also wish to observe that the Commission of Inquiry is a fact finding body and during the course of such inquiry, the Commission need not attribute ‘collusion’, ‘conspiracy’ or ‘fraud’ etc., Therefore, we find some force in the submission of the senior counsel for the petitioner that the commission exceeded its scope and ambit in conducting inquiry proceedings by attributing negligence or collusion against the petitioner hospital even before the submission of final report to the government by way of application or counter statement to the application filed by the petitioner, which in our opinion, the commission could have avoided”.
The bench said the one man commission of Inquiry, as a fact finding body, cannot determine the rights or liabilities or decide any questions of guilt or innocence on any one, who was part of the inquiry before it since the commission was not dealing with a lis between two wrangling parties. The commission can only offer its opinion to the government for its mind, with respect to the nature of treatment given by the petitioner on the basis of oral and documentary evidence-whether such treatment was adequate or not.
"Since the Commission had cast certain aspersions against the petitioner hospital, in our opinion, that by itself, will not vitiate the inquiry proceedings hitherto conducted by the commission. We hope and trust that the Commission will confine his inquiry strictly within the scope and ambit of terms of reference made by the government. Further, it cannot also be said that the remarks made by the Commission will form part of the final report to be submitted to the government. We are also fully aware of the fact that even if a final report is submitted by the commission to the government, either way, yet, it is for the government to act upon the same and if the report that is to be submitted by the commission is acted upon, in such event, the petitioner hospital will be provided all due opportunity in adherence to principles of natural justice", the bench added.
