SC seeks Apollo Hospital's response on Tamil Nadu government's Jayalalithaa death inquiry plea

The Supreme Court on Thursday sought a response from Apollo Hospitals Enterprises Ltd on a plea by the Tamil Nadu government to vacate the stay on proceedings of an Inquiry Commission to probe into the death of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in 2016.

A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Sanjiv Khanna sought a response from the hospital. The top court had on April 26, 2019, stayed proceedings, including summoning of all records, by the Justice A Arumugaswamy Commission.

The Tamil Nadu government, in an application, contended the tenure of the Commission has been extended eight times since it was set up on September 27, 2017 and it was incurring Rs 4.26 lakh per month towards salary for the staff.

The Commission had already examined 154 witnesses, including 56 doctors from the Apollo and five from AIIMS, 12 government doctors, including medical board of five doctors, 22 paramedical staff and 59 other witnesses, it said.

The state government accused Apollo Hospitals, which readily acceded to and participated in the proceedings of the Inquiry Commission, of adopting dilatory tactics to unnecessarily delay the inquiry and publication of final report. It also asked the court to give an early date of hearing.

Jayalalithaa was treated for 75 days at the Apollo Hospitals of Chennai till her death on December 5, 2016.

The hospital has challenged the Madras High Court's order of April 4, 2019 whereby it had refused to stay the proceedings, including summoning of all records by the Commission.

The High Court had said though the apprehension of bias may be justified, the Commission should be allowed to continue the proceedings as its findings may not be binding but would determine the future course of action by the state government.

As many as 30 volumes of medical records, CDs have been furnished before the Commission by the state government to look into the circumstances leading to death of Jayalalithaa.