The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) on Wednesday extended its stay on the appointment of new head in the forensic medicine department of the AIIMS in the wake of the Sunanda Pushkar autopsy row. A bench of members Ashok Kumar and Raj Vir Sharma restrained AIIMS from appointing new head in the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology till August 28, the next date of hearing. The tribunal, on May 28, had stayed the appointment of new head in the forensic medicine department. Currently, the department is headed by Dr Sudhir Kumar Gupta, who had taken the charge in August, 2013 as Professor and Head of Department.

The tribunal’s order came over the plea of Dr Gupta claiming seniority and challenging the promotion granted to Dr OP Murthy and said it was ‘biased’ and ‘mala fide’. Dr Gupta had claimed that former Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had pressurised him to act in an ‘unprofessional’ manner. “AIIMS has deliberately and hurriedly prepared and considered the impugned approval at the instance of former president (of the institution) with mala fide intention to illegally punish the applicant herein for refusing to act un-professionally in Sunanda Pushkar autopsy matter. It is submitted that the applicant was asked to prepare tailor-made autopsy report giving clean chit irrespective of his professional conclusions,” the rejoinder filed by Dr Gupta had stated.

Fifty-two-year-old Pushkar was found dead in her hotel room on January 17 and the death is still shrouded in mystery. Dr Gupta had conducted the autopsy and prepared the post-mortem report of Pushkar with the conclusion reportedly saying that she died of drug poisoning.