Police say alleged fraud case againt Venugopal sent to CBI

New Delhi, Feb 4 (UNI) Changing its statement before a Delhi Court, the Delhi Police has submitted that it had referred to the CBI the alleged corruption case in connection with collection of excess funds to the tune of about Rs 45 crore from the patients against Director of AIIMS P Venugopal.

Appearing before Metropolitan Magistrate Chandra Sekhar, the Station House Officer (SHO) of Defence Colony in South Delhi said the complaint had been referred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for a probe.

Earlier 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.

On January 22, the court had summoned the Station House Officer (SHO) for his appearance on January 31, to explain the reasons for not registering a criminal case.

In an application, petitioner Abdul Mabood alleged that the Delhi Police did not file the complaint against Dr Venugopal as they were hand-in-glove with the Director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

Counsel V K Ohri, appearing for the petitioner, pointed out that the police did not abide by the court order pronounced in September 2005.

The Metropolitan Magistrate had directed the Police 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 the date, the Delhi Police had not registered a criminal complaint against the respondents. The Police had referred the matter to the Union Health 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.

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 overcharged the patients, as it was not supposed to levy service charge, but also made profit out of patients' money by putting it in fixed deposit(FDR) etc, which was not permissible.

UNI