City’s oldest plague hospital gets justice posthumously

Mumbai: The Bombay high court on Saturday, rapped the state goverment, the official trustees, for not complying with an HC order of 1993, directing it to transfer the trusteeship and all related assets to the Indian Red Cross Society, which was taking care of the Adams Wylie Memorial Hospital at Agripada. The court said that the trustee had no right to hold on to the movable assets and should immediately hand them over. However, the order came a tad too late as lack of funds and the state of disrepair led to the demise of the hospital, which had been set up in 1902 by the widow of a British army doctor. The hospital has since made way for a modern day hospital set up by the Wockhardt Foundation, which leased the land from the Indian Red Cross Society. However, it has retained the name of the hospital in one of its wings.

A bench of Justice K.R. Shriram was hearing a chamber summons filed by the Indian Red Cross Society, seeking directions to the official trustees to implement a 1993 Bombay HC order, wherein the court had ordered it to hand over the hospital premises, and all its movable assets, which included bank accounts, investments, cash and title deeds among others, to the Society within three months. However, the trustee handed over the premises, but not the movable assets.

After receiving the premise, the Society kept applying to the trustee to hand over the movable assets but with no result. Lack of funds then led to the ruin of the Adams Wylie Memorial Hospital and it finally closed down in 2004. The Indian Red Cross Society then entered into an MoU with Wockhardt, which erected a new hospital building but retained the name of the original hospital. However, the trustee filed complaints with the BMC and police against the same.

While justifying the MoU, the Society referred to the 1993 order, wherein it had received absolute rights to manage and administer the hospital and even enter into agreements with other persons for the same. The chamber summons pleaded that the Trustee, rather than complying with the 1993 order, was creating problems and should be directed to fulfil its duties.

After hearing the contentions, the judge held that the Society was right in light of the 1993 order and subsequent chamber summons filed in 2007. The judge held that the conduct of the Trustee smacked of malafide intentions and it had no business to lodge complaints with the BMC and police.

The court disposed of the summons saying, “Petitioner is directed to take all steps within two weeks and to transfer all assets, properties, investments in the name of the said Hospital to respondent no.1 (Indian Red Cross Society) within four weeks..”