MADRAS MEDICAL MISSION Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The common petitioner in these writ petitions--the Madras Medical Mission (MMM) whose membership is confined to Orthodox Syrian Christians--was registered 12.01.1982 as a Society under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, 1975 (Tamil Nadu Act 27/1975). It's President is Bishop of that Church at Chennai. It presently has 135 members. The objects of the Society are primarily to establish hospitals, conduct research studies in medicine and run educational institutions including medical colleges.

(2.) MMM owns and runs a well known super speciality hospital: Institute of Cardio Vascular Diseases (ICVD), which was established in the year 1987, as also the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Women's Health (IRM) and a Transplant Center at Chennai. The assets at Chennai are valued at about Rs.55 Crores. It has recently established at Pondicherry, the Pondicherry Institute of Medical Science (PIMS), which comprises of a 300 bed hospital and a medical college with an annual intake of hundred students. The hospital at Pondicherry commenced functioning in mid 2001 and the college admitted it's first batch of students in 2003. The estimated cost of the PIMS is Rs.80 crores of which about Rs.45 crores has been already invested.

(3.) The number of it's employees at Chennai is 794, whose mothly pay bill is about Rs.79 lakhs. At Pondicherry, the employees number 881 of whom 162 are doctors. The monthly pay bill is Rs.81.21 lakhs. The annual income generated at Chennai is about Rs.47 crores. The highest paid employee of MMM is the life time Director of ICVD, Dr.K.M.Cherian, whose annual remuneration of Rs.1.73 crores plus numerous valuable perquisites is over seven times that of the next highest salaried employee of the ICVD. The proceedings initiated at his instance is the cause for this litigation.