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The fate of the single largest monetary donation to the community may hinge on an application to the Charity Commissioner (CC) made last April by a lawyer, Khushru, and Meher Zaiwala.   The magnanimous donation of USD 22.5 million (Rs 158 crores) was pledged by Pervin and Jal Shroff of Hong Kong for the construction of a cosmopolitan hospital from whose turnover a percentage and an assured amount would be given to The B. D. Petit Parsee General Hospital (PGH) to cover its substantial losses. Fifty-seven percent of the bed days in the existing, Parsis-only Hospital are either free or subsidized, according to the PGH annual report for 2016-2017. (The report for the subsequent year was not available.) PGH made an operating loss of Rs 13 crores in the financial year 2016-2017. Thanks to donations worth over five crore rupees and  Rs 7.8 crore return on investments, the final loss was a little less than a crore.
The PGH executive committee (EC), with the approval of the Shroffs, entered into a management contract with the Gurgaon based Medanta Group of Hospitals to run the new entity to be called The Shroff Medical Centre of the Bomanji Petit Parsee General Hospital.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is opposition to the proposal from a handful resulting in the project being inordinately delayed. The pledge was made in April 2015 and the Shroffs as well as Medanta have given the PGH management time till March 31, 2019 to sort out the issue.
The Zaiwalas have opposed the money being used for creating a cosmopolitan hospital on the grounds that the EC of the PGH has committed a "fraud,” with "mala fide intent,” attempted to "illegal(ly)… transfer (property) rights” and indulged in "passive euthanasia...especially on poor patients.”
The EC has refuted the charges stating they are "replete with inaccuracies and false statements,” besides being "baseless and defamatory.”
The Zaiwalas alleged the EC members are "collaborating and colluding with each other, to transfer a substantial area of the said Hospital trust, worth over Rs 2,000 crores (USD 283.5 million), to one Medanta Corporation...under the guise of a ‘Management Contract’ for (a) period (of) 45 years, extendable further by another 30 years, and have gone further and signed a contract… for transfer of interest in substantial portion of the Hospital trust, without the permission of the CC or the High Court… and have deliberately avoided to issue a public notice calling for best offers, as mandated…
 "The medical practitioners disappeared from the (EC) of the said Hospital trust and were replaced by builders, property brokers and financiers who had neither knowledge nor inclination to run the Hospital trust.”
They alleged EC chairman Homa Petit has "systematically planned to destroy the Hospital trust from within.” PGH joint honorary secretary Zarir Bhathena who built a residential tower for Parsis in the compound of the Wadia Agiary in Lalbaug has, according to the Zaiwalas, "hurt the religious sentiments of the Parsi Zoroastrian community.”
The Zaiwalas alleged that in 2013 when Khushru was admitted as a patient he "suffered untold pain and agony” and when his mother was admitted in 2001 she "passed away within an hour of admission... due to shock caused by...administration of duplicate saline.”
They stated their requests for inspection of the contract agreement had been "met only by stoic silence and refusal.” They prayed "that the CC appoint an administrator and issue an injunction preventing the PGH from handing over the plot to Medanta.”
In their reply dated November 19 last year, PGH noted, "the existing Hospital will continue to be for the exclusive use and benefit of ‘Parsis by birth and Zoroastrian by religion,’ whereas the newly constructed separate building, though built and owned by PGH, will be run by a professional hospital operator, namely Medanta (a reputed group led by the famed Dr Naresh Trehan of New Delhi), under a Hospital Management Agreement (HMA), and will be for cosmopolitan use… In fact such a scheme, far from hurting the beneficiaries of the existing Hospital, will, on the contrary… help the existing Hospital to provide those diagnostic facilities not currently available in the existing PGH…
"Medanta will equip, operate and manage the new hospital with state-of-the-art equipment and healthcare facilities and services which is expected to be of a very substantial value…
"The Hospital shall receive not only a fixed annuity of Rs 12 crores (going up to Rs 18 crores) but also a percentage of gross billable revenues from the operation of the new hospital on an annual basis. All taxes in respect of the new hospital, including goods and service tax or any other existing or new direct or indirect tax or levy will be borne and paid by Medanta alone. Furthermore, after the commencement date, Medanta will pay property taxes, or any other taxes cess, levy payable to MCGM (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai) or any local/governmental body in respect of the new hospital and Medanta will also undertake all non-structural repairs, maintenance, renovation, refurbishments to the new hospital at its cost. This would mean that (PGH) will be cocooned from financial liabilities such as costs and expenses, taxes, and other liabilities, inflationary trends, etc.”
 "The HMA clearly provides that no rights or interests in the land and/or building are created in favor of Medanta, nor is the trust’s property being alienated and/or transferred in any manner. On the contrary, it is respectfully submitted that there is an accretion to the Hospital of property of Rs 150 crores. It is the donors’ commitment to construct the new hospital in order that the benefits therefrom shall flow to the existing PGH, and consequently, to the less fortunate and indigent members of the Parsi/Irani Zoroastrian community…
 "The area on which the new Hospital will come up is not even six percent of the entire property and it is denied that the said area is ‘worth Rs 2,000 crores’ as alleged... The agreement itself clearly provides (it) is for an initial period of 30 years, extendable for a further period of 15 years on the terms and conditions mentioned…
"In view of the confidentiality clause in Article 13 of the HMA, they would have been in breach if the HMA was circulated amongst the public…
"The EC of the Hospital comprises of some of the most respected members of the community from different professions and vocations… The applicants have a personal vendetta against respondent nos. 2 (Petit) and 6 (Bhathena) and the Hospital, and that this false and frivolous complaint is made by the applicants only with a view to attack the person and character of respondent nos. 2 and 6…”
PGH noted the EC "is given the power under the trust deed to demolish and reconstruct the whole or any portion of the structures then standing upon the trust premises… It is further provided that the committee is entitled to ‘erect additional buildings without pulling down the present buildings as the case may be.’”
The Memorandum of Association dated November 14, 1922, provides: "The objects of (PGH) shall be primarily to provide, maintain and manage in Bombay a Hospital for Parsis…
"It is pertinent that in respect of the incidental and subsidiary objects, there is no mention that the same has to be for Parsis only. The primary object being a hospital for Parsis as long as the incidental objects are also conducive to the primary object, i.e. restoration of health, there would be no issue.”