Mumbai: A week after he was removed from the position of executive director of Lilavati Hospital and Research Centre in Bandra, former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh on Thursday filed an application before the charity commissioner challenging his termination.
Singh was removed from the position on February 5, hours after he filed a criminal complaint at the Bandra police station alleging malpractices at the Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust (LKMMT), which runs the top hospital, and accusing permanent trustees Rajiv and Prashant Mehta of committing illegal acts.
“I have filed a petition before the charity commissioner for setting aside the illegal order of termination of my services and also for action against some of the trustees indulging in illegal activities and against the interests of the trust,” Singh said. A charity commissioner is a government official who oversees charitable organisations and public trusts.
Rajiv and Prashant Mehta have, in turn, accused Singh and their brother Rajesh Mehta, also a permanent trustee, of forging the minutes of a board meeting held in July 2024 with the intention of usurping control of the trust.
In his complaint addressed to the deputy commissioner of police (zone IX) on February 6, Prashant Mehta alleged that Rajesh Mehta, Singh and six other former employees of the LKMMT had hatched a criminal conspiracy to forge the minutes of a board meeting, siphoned off over ₹100 crore in trust funds, and tried to unlawfully gain control of its affairs. He also alleged that Singh and Rajesh Mehta tried to engineer a “coup and mutiny” within the trust and the hospital administration.
Singh, in his police complaint filed on February 5, accused Prashant Mehta, Rajiv Mehta, and others of malpractice and misappropriation of trust funds. He had earlier flagged concerns over the trust’s governance and functioning in an email to its chairperson, Charu Mehta, on February 2. Singh claimed he was compelled to file the complaint after the trust failed to act on the concerns he had raised. Charu Mehta is the mother of Rajiv, Rajesh and Prashant Mehta.
Prashant Mehta, however, said in his complaint to the DCP that Singh’s allegations were “an ironic work of fiction born out of narcissistic imagination.” He also sent a reminder to the DCP on February 10, seeking the immediate registration of an FIR based on his earlier complaint against Singh, Rajesh Mehta and others.