29 March,2017 02:30 PM IST | | Gaurav Sarkar
Supreme Court quashes ex-BPP member's Special Leave Petition (SLP)against the High Court okay to develop Parsi Lying-In Hospital (PLIH), but the developer walked out two years ago
The Parsi Lying-In Hospital is in need of repairs. File Pic
Last week, the Supreme Court disposed off the Special Leave Petition (SLP), filed in early 2015 by ex-Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustee Dinshaw Mehta and Armaity Tirandaz against the Bombay HC order that had allowed a company - Krimson - to re-operationalise the long unused and dilapidated building of Parsi Lying-In Hospital (PLIH).
However, ironically, Krimson Healthcare had pulled out of the development deal in November 2015 - a move that was interpreted as a direct side-effect of the infighting between Mehta and his son Viraf (current BPP board member) on one side against the current BPP chairman Yezdi Desai faction.
Community loses out
But, the biggest loss turns out to be that of the Parsi community which has been suffering for years due to the long internal battle. Now, with BPP trustees and the PLIH managing committee members back at the starting line to look for a new donor or developer for the dilapidated building, chances of the heritage property being revived soon just got slimmer.
"Under the Krimson deal, 10 per cent of hospital beds were reserved for Parsis, free of cost, and so was all treatment associated with these beds," said Kersi Randeria, a member of PLIH's managing committee and a current BPP Trustee, adding, "In a year, this leads to around 600 operations on a cyclic basis." According to him, there was even a revenue sharing (not profit sharing) formal that had been worked out, making the Krimson deal 'one of the best.' "My community is an ageing community and the major health problems that we face are orthopaedic in nature. This super-specialty hospital is what the community needed in the present day."
Randeria also pointed out that neither the BPP nor the PLIH managing committee had the funds to repair or renew the lease for PLIH. "This may run into quite a tidy sum of money of Rs.107 crore (estimate). This expense would have been borne for free."
'Blank slate'
Desai, meanwhile, termed their current position as a 'blank slate,' and said: "The building is in a dilapidated condition and the BMC has issued a notice to the trustees for not maintaining it.
We would have had a functional PLIH if it wasn't for this litigation." However, according to Mehta, "the best way to go ahead is to develop it ourselves."
