New Delhi, June 2 (IANS): AIIMS has sought permission from the Delhi High Court to appoint D.N. Bhardwaj as the new head of its forensic medicine and toxicology department by replacing incumbent Sudhir Kumar Gupta.

Gupta had created a controversy when he said he was pressurised by top officials to show Sunanda Pushkar's death was "natural".

The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) had accused Gupta of generating adverse publicity for the institute by levelling baseless allegations.

Pushkar, wife of Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, was found dead in her room at a five-star hotel in Delhi on January 17, 2014.

The high court had on March 25 directed AIIMS to take its permission before replacing Gupta while hearing his plea challenging the March 4 decision of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) which had rejected his charge that O.P. Murty was promoted after purging his seniority, with the purpose of obtaining a "tailor-made report" in the Sunanda Pushkar death case.

Gupta had alleged discrimination after he claimed to have refused to act unprofessionally in the Sunanda Pushkar autopsy matter.

Filing an application in the case, AIIMS said Bhardwaj was senior to Gupta by four years and that Gupta had not challenged the former's seniority either before the CAT or in the high court.

The high court would hear the matter on July 23.