Delhi: CBI books Lok Nayak Hospital's ex-MD for graft in medicine procurement

New Delhi, Aug 1 (IANS) The CBI has booked Lok Nayak Hospital's former MD and former CMO of the Delhi government hospital and two officials of two private companies in a corruption case related to procurement of medicine and surgical consumables, an official said on Friday.

Dr. Suresh Kumar, the then MD, Lok Nayak Hospital (LNH), Dr. Hem Prakash, the then Procurement Officer, CMO, LNH, Suresh Kumar Chaudhary, Proprietor of M/s Adison Equipment Company and Mayank Parashar, Proprietor of M/s S.R. Surgical and unknown public servants of Lok Nayak Hospital were booked under penal provisions for conspiracy and breach of trust for causing loss of crores of rupees to the government, the official said.

A preliminary enquiry by the CBI which preceded the registration of the FIR on July 30 revealed that Local Authorized Chemist M/s S.R. Surgical in connivance with Dr. Hem Prakash, the then Procurement Officer, LNH, and other unknown officials of the hospital caused loss to the government exchequer to the tune of several crores by demanding and supplying branded medicine instead of generic ones though there was no specific demand of branded medicine from particular wards/departments of LNH between 2018 and 2021.

The FIR said the enquiry prima-facie revealed that undue benefit/favors were given to M/s Adison Equipment Company by Dr. Suresh Kumar, MD and other unknown officials of Lok Nayak Hospital by extending the rate contract of M/s Adison Equipment Company from time to time without any justification and in purchase of 8 Macerators of an inferior quality at a higher price as compared to available Macerator of superior quality at a lower price thereby causing wrongful loss to the Government exchequer and wrongful gain to the M/s Adison Equipment Company.

In a separate development, Special Judge, Anti-Corruption, CBI, Court, Ghaziabad, on Friday convicted and sentenced accused public servant Rakesh Babu Garg, the then Executive Engineer (C), CPWD, New Delhi, to three years’ Rigorous Imprisonment (RI) with a fine of Rs. 50,000 in a Disproportionate Assets (DA) case.

The Disproportionate assets Case was registered on the basis of recovery of incriminating documents and articles against the public servant in a trap case dated October 13.

Garg was arrested on October 18, 2010 and during questioning, he made disclosure of having accepted bribe and led the CBI team including independent witnesses to Agra, where a sum of Rs 85 lakh was recovered at his instance.

Accordingly, the instant DA Case was registered on August 8, 2011 against Garg on the allegation of having in possession huge disproportionate assets beyond his known sources of income.

Garg was found to be possession of disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 87.53 lakh against his income of Rs 35 lakh during the check period.

After investigation, Chargesheet was filed by CBI on December 18, 2012. During trial 54 witnesses were examined on behalf of prosecution.

--IANS

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