DHIRENDRA KUMAR Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD Mr. Basant Kumar Choudhary for the petitioner, and Mr. Mithilesh Kumar Mauar, learned junior counsel to Government Pleader No. XI. This Writ petition has been preferred with the prayer to quash letter No. 369 (24), dated 4.2.2000 (Annexure -1), issued by the Government of Bihar in the Department of Health, Medical Education and Family Welfare, whereby he has conveyed the decision of the Finance Department, refusing to reimburse the petitioner for the medical treatment undergone by him in Delhi on the ground that prior permission for the same was not obtained. The respondents have placed on record their counter affidavit and have supported the impugned action.

(2.) I have perused the materials on record and considered the submissions of learned counsel for the parties. The facts are not in dispute and may be briefly stated. The petitioner has had a history of heart problem and he was treated in Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre, New Delhi (hereinafter referred to as Escorts), during the period 5.7.1990 to 24.7.1990, an earlier period not really relevant in the present context. He was, at the relevant point of time, Associate Professor of Orthopaedics in the Medical College and Hospital, Muzaffarpur. There was a recurrence of his heart problem in December 1996, and was admitted to the Heart Hospital Private Limited, Patna, on 25.12.1996, in the care of Dr. A.K. Thakur, a well -known heart Consultant of Patna, and was discharged on 4.1.1997. A photo copy of the discharge summary is marked Annexure -6 to the writ petition which starts with the statement that "This patient was admitted with complaint of severe chest pain, SOB &. hypertension. Known case of CAD (TVD), S/P CABG in 1990 at Escorts Heart Institute". He was discharged with the note that "Referred to Escorts Hospital, New Delhi, for urgent coronary angiography & revascularisation".

(3.) THE respondent authorities have failed to realise that the petitioner, with history of heart problem, had rushed to Escorts on the advice of a leading heart Consultant of Patna. It is further manifest that the Escorts took up the matter with utmost seriousness, and the speed with which the Coronary Angiography and the Coronary Angioplasty had taken place is by itself proof of grave emergency involved in the matter, apart from the findings clearly recorded in the discharge summary. I am, therefore, convinced that it was not possible for the petitioner, except risking his life, to obtain prior permission I of the State Government before proceeding to Delhi for treatment.