In what is being seen as a source of relief for Gorakhpur’s Dr Kafeel Khan and his family, a double bench of a Supreme Court bench comprising Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Indira Banerjee on Saturday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to pay all the subsistence allowance to Dr Kafeel Khan pending since his suspension.
The Allahabad High Court on 7th March 2019, had asked the UP government to conclude departmental inquiry against Dr Khan within 90 days.
Dr Kafeel Khan has been suspended since 2nd September 2017. According to him, the reason the government is delaying the departmental inquiry is that ‘it is protecting the real perpetrators of the BRD Oxygen tragedy.
The Yogi government has been accused of delaying the disciplinary procedure for than 20 months because many feel that this will expose the corrupt officers, who did not make the timely payment to the gas supplying agency’. Dr Khan has named the District Magistrate, DGME, and both the health ministers as the main culprits adding that he will continue fighting until the perpetrators of this crime are brought to justice.
Dr Kafeel Khan was represented before the top court by Senior Advocate Meenakshi Arora and Advocate on Record Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi, who did the work pro-bono. Khan said taht he was thankful to the top court and the judges for this order.
Dr Kafeel Khan is the suspended Assistant Professor, Department of Paediatrics, at BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur. When, in 2017, a large number of child deaths occurred in the BRD hospital at Gorakhpur due to lack of Oxygen, Dr. Kafeel Khan, prevented further deaths by paying for Oxygen cylinders out of his own pocket. To hide its incompetence, the Yogi government scapegoated Dr Khan, and he was forced to spend many months in jail.
