The Delhi High Court today asked the AAP government what would be the mode of determining penalty to be imposed on a private hospital which allegedly refuses to provide free treatment to poor patients as required under its land allotment lease condition.
"Who will determine? What will be mode of determination," Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva asked while hearing a plea of Fortis Escorts Heart Institute here which has been slapped with a fine of over Rs 100 crore for allegedly refusing to provide free treatment to poor patients.
The court raised the query as the Delhi government did not place before it the original records of a meeting held on December 10 last year on the basis of which it had purportedly arrived at the amount.
Besides Fortis, the Delhi government had asked four other Delhi-based private hospitals -- Max Super Specialty Hospital (Saket), Dharamshila Cancer Hospital, Shanti Mukand Hospital and Pushpawati Singhania Research Institute -- to deposit "unwarranted profits" they earned from allegedly refusing free treatment to the poor.
During the hearing, the court directed the government to place before it on August 1, whatever records it has regarding the meeting after its counsel said there was only an attendance sheet of meeting and there was no record of the discussions.
This contention was disputed by Fortis hospital's counsel who said that she had signed the sheet containing a record of what had transpired at the meeting.
Delhi government counsel Peeyoosh Kalra then said the records would be placed before the court on August 1.
The lawyer, during the hearing, also said the additional affidavit filed by the hospital, regarding records provided by it to the government, was vague.
A special committee, appointed to look into the affairs of the hospitals as per a high court order of 2007, had imposed a fine of over Rs 32 crore on Max, Rs 36.30 on Shanti Mukand, Rs 10.6 on Pushpawati Singhania, over Rs 100 crore on Fortis and Rs 17.86 crore on Dharamshila.
During the previous hearing, the court had refused to
grant an interim stay in favour of the hospital, saying that Fortis has to first deposit some money if wants to insist on an interim relief.
The hospital in its plea challenging the fine imposed on it has questioned the basis for arriving at the amount of over Rs 105 crore.
It had said that in two earlier show cause notices issued by the health department, the amounts were Rs 736 crore and Rs 500 crore.
The health department had claimed that the hospitals were provided land at concessional rates between 1960 and 1990on the condition that they will treat the poor free of cost, but they have not abided by it.
As many as 43 private hospitals in Delhi were allotted land at concessional rates on the condition that they will keep 10 per cent of their in-patient department capacity and 25 per cent of out-patient department capacity to treat economically weaker section patients free of cost.
