After almost four years of illegally conducting the ‘age determination examination’, Aruna Asaf Ali Hospital admitted in an RTI reply to having an unqualified doctor in their committee of four members meant for determining the age of juvenile delinquents. The hospital authorities had appointed Dr Amit Sharma to a medical board consisting on the pretext of being a radiologist, a job he had no degree, diploma or any sort of qualification for. After an RTI was filed by activist Dr Avinash Kumar, the hospital admitted that Dr Sharma was doing the examination from the Radiology Department since May 20, 2010 to April 24, 2014 without any postgraduation degree or diploma in radiology.
According to the reply submitted by the hospital, Sharma has no degree, diploma or DNB (Diplomate of National Board) which means that he is not eligible to become member of age determination examination board. “As per the service book record, Dr Amit Sharma does not have a degree, diploma or DNB in radiology,” said the reply to the RTI application by Kumar who is a former doctor of Aruna Asaf Ali Hospital.
The Delhi Government, in an order dated February 1, 2013, laid down set guidelines for the age determination examination committee. Despite this, Sharma, who was appointed on the board in 2010, remained in the medical board. The special secretary of health and family welfare SB Shashank had also written to the directors and medical superintendents of Government hospitals in Delhi in regard to this notification. “The High Court of Delhi has directed that the Government hospitals shall constitute medical board to carry out medical age examination and shall give report not later than 15 days. In this regard, it is requested to constitute medical boards consisting of physiologist, dental examiner and radiologist/ forensic experts,” he wrote. However, since the board at Aruna Asaf Ali Hospital was already functioning, they didn’t remove Sharma. The hospital’s board for this purpose also functioned without the mandatory physiologist.
However, the hospital authorities claim to be clueless about this happening. Thus, after the RTI reply came, strict action was taken by the medical superintendent. Dr SK Sharma, medical superintendent, said that ever since he heard of this misdoing, he stopped the functioning of the board. Additionally, he also informed the Health Department of the Delhi Government about the misdoing and asked them to deploy a replacement. “Dr Sharma was part of medical board before I took charge of hospital as medical superintendent. My predecessor had failed to give any reply on the matter. Meanwhile we have stopped conducting age determination tests in the hospital and are looking into the matter,” the MS said.