AIIMS doctor vindicated, faced flak for stand

NEW DELHI: With the Delhi Police concluding that Sunanda Pushkar was murdered, the stand taken by Dr Sudhir Gupta has been vindicated. Gupta, head of the forensics department at AIIMS, conducted Pushkar’s post-mortem. He was the first person to raise the possibility of her murder.
“It is a case of sudden, unnatural death,” Gupta said on January 19, 2014, hours after completing the post-mortem.The autopsy report submitted to the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) investigating the case went on to add that death had been caused due to poisoning, which could be suicidal or homicidal.
Initially, it was apprehended that Sunanda could have died due to drug overdose since multiple strips of anti-depressants were recovered by the police from the hotel room where she was found dead. But the toxicology report ruled out the presence of any such drug in the deceased’s viscera. Then Gupta, in another detailed report, said poison such as thallium or polonium that cannot be detected in Indian labs might have been used to kill Sunanda.
His statements, including the one where he alleged being pressured into giving a tailor-made report, stirred up a controversy. Many people, including senior AIIMS offi cials, termed his actions as motivated and aimed at saving his own chair.
Gupta was promoted as the head of the forensics and toxicology department in August 2013, following the retirement Dr T D Dogra. But in year 2014, days before the Lok Sabha election results were declared, the governing body of the institute approved a proposal to promote another doctor from the forensics department. Gupta has filed a complaint with the Central Administrative Tribunal against the decision. Among others, the appeal mentions exchange of mails between Tharoor and AIIMS officials to back his claims about trying to influence investigations.
The mails mentioned a report by an independent doctor that speculated the possibility of Sunanda dying a natural death— a claim trashed by Gupta in his autopsy reports.
Gupta has handled many highprofile cases, including the Shivani Bhatnagar, Jessica Lal, and the Nitish Katara murder cases.
In 2009, Gupta had courted a controversy created when he rejected the application of then AIIMS deputy director, (administration) Sailesh Yadav, for admission into PhD programme in forensic science. Yadav did not have an MSc degree or a master’s degree in a subject allied to medical sciences, which is a eligibility criterion according to AIIMS regulations.