Medical racket at Ram Manohar Lohia hospital (RML): CBI arrests 2 more in stent-for-bribe case

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested a senior manager of a medical equipment firm and a nurse in connection with the medical devices racket at Ram Manohar Lohia hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday. Till Thursday, 11 people, including two cardiologists of the hospital, had been arrested. The probe is going on and more arrests are likely.
On Wednesday, a Delhi court sent nine of the people arrested earlier to CBI’s custody for five days. The arrests on Thursday were of Akarshan Gulati, territory sales manager of a firm named Biotronik, and Shalu Sharma, a nurse at the central govt-run hospital, a police officer said.
Sharma allegedly ran a cash-for-appointment racket at the hospital. CBI has alleged Sharma and a clerk named Bhuwal Jaiswal threatened to stop the treatment of a pregnant woman and discharge her unless her husband paid them Rs 20,000 as a bribe. The man paid the duo by UPI.
According to CBI, the corruption racket took place through five modules: supply of stents and other medical needs, supply of a particular brand of stents, supply of medical equipment in labs, admission of patients in exchange for bribes and issue of fake medical certificates.
The probe team is interrogating the two arrested doctors, identified as Dr Ajay Raj, professor in the cardiology department, and Dr Parvathgouda, assistant professor of cardiology. The duo allegedly connived with firms engaged in supply of medical equipment, stents in the main, and accepted bribes to promote their products.
Besides the doctors, CBI has arrested a director and employee of firms engaged in supply of medical equipment besides nurses, clerks and lab employees working in the hospital. At least four private firms based in Delhi and Gurgaon are being scrutinised. CBI is now in the process of summoning the accused employees of the private firms who were in touch with the doctors. Account transaction analysis is also under way to ascertain the number of patients affected by the racket in stents.
“We are also probing if the stents were substandard. The patients are being contacted through hospital records. We are speaking to other doctors as well. We are also probing the price difference of the stents,” said an officer.
On Wednesday, special judge Prashant Kumar granted custody of the individuals arrested to CBI, saying that “at the initial stage of probe, a thorough custodial interrogation of the accused persons is required not only to confront various documents but also to extract information regarding other accused persons”.
The court also noted that documents pertaining to receiving and transfer of money of alleged illegal gratification either through bank or through cash were yet to be collected for which thorough and detailed custodial interrogation of all accused persons was required. The investigating agency told the court that while searches were under way in various places, it would be in the interest of justice to keep the copy of FIR in sealed cover. The accused had opposed the CBI application on the ground that neither a copy of FIR nor the copy of application seeking police custody had been provided to them.
Meanwhile, the court rejected the request of the accused persons for provision of home-cooked food. However, the court allowed them their other requests, including meeting with a family member, carrying into custody of medicines as per their doctor's prescription and videographing of their interrogation during CBI custody.