New Delhi: A team of Delhi government’s Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) took “necessary documents” from the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital as part of its probe into the allegations of substandard consumables and surgical equipment being used at the state-run six hospitals, ThePrint has learnt.
Investigation has been going on for months before an First Information Report was filed last Friday, according to the FIR.
Apart from LNJP, the hospitals under ACB’s scanner are Lal Bahadur Hospital, Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital, Janakpuri Super Speciality Hospital.
The development comes in the backdrop of the Delhi Lieutenant Governor recommending a CBI probe into the allegations of supply of poor quality drugs to government hospitals and malpractices by medical and staff at mohalla clinics and commissioning of fake tests as reported by ThePrint last week.
The ACB reports to the Delhi Lieutenant Governor‘s office.
A senior ACB officer told ThePrint that the vigilance wing of the Department of Health and Family Welfare constituted teams and took samples in August last year and that they submitted a report to the department to proceed with the inquiry after the sample failed quality test.
The officer said that an ACB team visited LNJP Tuesday to collect documents about the acquisition of equipment and that teams are likely to visit the other hospitals.
“We have been conducting an inquiry and have also filed an FIR in the case. We have been calling officials from the hospitals to our office as part of the probe but today we needed to collect some documents, hence a team went to LNJ,” the officer added.
Also Read: ED to send 4th summons to Kejriwal in excise policy case. ‘Hell bent on arresting me,’ says Delhi CM
Fingers pointed at manufacturers in central portal
In the FIR, the ACB has invoked Section 7A (offence relating to public servant being bribed for doing public duty improperly) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Section 120 B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and Section 18 of the Drugs and Cosmetic Act ( dealing with prohibition of manufacture and sale of certain drugs and cosmetics) against 13 manufacturing companies.
The FIR details that the vigilance wing formed a team on 18 August last year to check various activities in hospitals and initially found that samples of cotton bandages and infusion sets collected from Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital failed quality tests done at government-authorised laboratories.
Subsequently, five more hospitals came into the scanner as the vigilance team started collecting more samples.
ThePrint has a copy of the FIR.
At the LNJP hospital, three items — rolled bandage, absorbent cotton, and infusion set — were found to be of substandard quality while the latex examination gloves failed the quality test, the deputy secretary in the vigilance wing of the health department complained which formed the basis of the FIR.
At the DDU Hospital, four surgical equipment were found to be not meeting the standard quality while one item failed the quality test.
The FIR mentioned that cotton bandages were not up to standard quality at the Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital and Janakpuri Super Speciality Hospital while Medical Disposable Surgical Rubber Gloves failed the quality test. Absorbent cotton wool and rolled bandages were found to be of not of the standard quality.
Probe revealed that in some cases manufacturers used Chinese plastic wires in place of Indian Standard (IS) certified cotton thread in the manufacturing of cotton bandages, rolled bandages, absorbent cotton and gauze supplied to these hospitals, the FIR stated
“Manufacturers and traders are operating in collusion with public servants belonging to hospitals and health departments leading to supply of substandard surgical items at exorbitant prices and putting lives of patients at risk even in ICUs of these hospitals,” an ACB officer told ThePrint.
Meanwhile, a Delhi government spokesperson said that all the items under question were procured from the central government portal Government e-Marketplace (GeM) as part of the finance rules that mandate such purchase from this platform only.
As these suppliers supply materials to all state and central governments, the spokesperson said, the CBI should probe the GeM for the presence of such suppliers supplying substandard materials.
“All the substandard items were bought from GeM. The rules of finance have made it mandatory that government departments should buy products from GeM and only if they are not available there, they can be bought from the open market through tenders. It is surprising that the central government is allowing such vendors on its portal who are giving sub-standard products,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“It is very important that such products are being supplied not just to the Delhi government, but also other state governments and the central government. This should be investigated by the central agency like the CBI so that it brings out the truth about GeM,” it added
(Edited by Tony Rai)
Also Read: 16 lakh attempted attacks per minute on India’s G20 site during leaders’ summit — cybercrime body