Madras HC puts on hold selection of Jipmer director

CHENNAI: The Madras high court on Tuesday ordered status quo in the appointment of director to the Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer) in Puducherry.

Justice T Raja passed the interim injunction on a plea moved by six senior professors of the institute assailing the move to appoint Dr V S Nagi, professor of medicine as the director. Representing the six professors, senior counsel P Wilson submitted that the petitioners were fully qualified to be appointed as director as per the notification dated November 18, 2017 inviting applications for the post.

"But, outgoing director Dr Subhash Chandra Parija had devised a scheme to ensure that Negi was selected as director. For this purpose, he made deputy director (admin) Dr D K Patro as scrutinising authority and directed him to impose a condition that candidates must send in only articles indexed in an American indexing service called PubMed," Wilson said.