Petition alleges police connivance with Venugopal in AIIMS funds

New Delhi, Jan 18 (UNI) Complaining against the Delhi Police for not registering a criminal case against AIIMS Director P Venugopal for alleged irregularities in collection of funds to the tune of about Rs 45 crore from the patients, a petitioner today approached a Delhi Court saying that ''the police are in connivance with the accused, who is highly influential.'' Filing an application before the Metropolian Magistrate, petitioner Abdul Mabood said, ''It is a well-settled norm that when a cognizable offence is disclosed, the police are duty-bound to register an FIR and it is not known under which provision the police had sent the complaint to the Central Vigilance Commission(CVC).'' Citing an order of the Supreme Court, Counsel V K Ohri said police were bound to register a case when the trial court took cognizance of the petition and ordered for a probe.

In an application, Delhi Police Joint Commissioner Ranjit Narayan had submitted before the court that the matter had been referred by the Union Health Ministry to the CVC for further probe.

''Inquiry conducted by the Union Health Ministry indicates that some of the AIIMS officials allegedly had committed financial irregularities, which contravened various sections of the AIIMS Act,'' said the application submitted before the court of Metropolitan Magistrate Chander Shekhar.

The Metropolitan Magistrate had directed the Police in September 2005 to register an FIR and conduct a vigilance probe for alleged financial irregularities against Dr Venugopal, Senior Financial Advisor Mayank Sharma, Deputy Medical Superintendent Arti Viz and the AIIMS.

But till date, the Delhi Police had not registered a criminal complaint against the respondents. The Police had referred the matter to the Union Helath Ministry.

Abdul Mabood of Greater Kailash in South Delhi had filed the petition in the District Court seeking direction for a vigilance probe against the respondents for allegedly collecting excess funds from the patients and depositing them in another account in contravention to the AIIMS Act.

''For about 10 years, the Cardio-Thorasic (CT) Centre and Neuro-Science(NS) Centre had been collecting fees from patients in advance for various procedures such as angiography, angioplasty, by-pass surgery and brain surgery,'' said the petition.

The money was deposited by the patients in the ''CT patient account'' and ''NS Patient Account'' instead of the AIIMS Account.

After the expenditure, about Rs 45 crore had been left in the account, which should have been returned to the patients, said the petitioner.

In a probe, it was found that the AIIMS had not only been overcharging the patients, as it was not supposed to levy service charge, but also was making profit out of patients' money by putting it in fixed deposit(FDR) etc, which was not permissible.

UNI