CHENNAI: Criticising the Tamil Nadu Health and Family Welfare department and the Director of Medical Education (DME) for refusing to count the administrative experience of a medical college professor, the Madras High Court has struck down an order of the department and directed inclusion of her name in the panel for promotion to the post of Dean of government medical colleges.
“The respondents have virtually used the services of the petitioner as the HoD whenever it is favourable to them and denied her the position as the HoD when it comes to recognising her administrative experience. Such a stand taken by the respondents is quite unfortunate and cannot at all be entertained by this court,” remarked Justice N Anand Venkatesh while ordering the inclusion of the name of the petitioner, Dr Priya Pasupathy, in the panel of 2024-25 for promotion to the post of Dean.
The judge quashed the October 1, 2024, GO (government order) of the Health and Family Welfare department for not including the name of the petitioner and the consequential order dated February 17, 2025.
He directed the respondents to include their names in the panel as per the civil medical list seniority within four weeks.
Advocate Kavitha Rameshwar, appearing for the petitioner, submitted that Priya Pasupathy served as HoD/Director (in-charge) of the Institute of Community Medicine, MMC, for certain period and had served as chief warden and deputy warden of women's hostels fulfilling the requirement of one year administrative experience. However, the respondents refused to consider the experience while preparing the panel for promotion citing that her services as HoD were not officially accounted for.
Stating that the “petitioner's name has been dropped like a hot potato and the respondents are turning around and coming up with hyper technical stand” for refusing to count her experience, Justice Venkatesh said if such stand is taken to its logical conclusion, the approval and renewal of seats in the department concerned obtained from the National Medical Commission (NMC) using the petitioner's signature in the position “will become questionable”.