Magistrate says no staff to write order in Dr Venugopal case

New Delhi, Feb 15 (UNI) A Delhi Court today expressed its inability to dictate an order in a case filed against AIIMS Director P Venugopal, saying it did not have sufficient subordinate staff.

The case has been filed in connection with alleged irregularities in collection of funds to the tune of about Rs 45 crore from patients.

When petitioner's counsel V K Ohri pressed for an order saying that the accused was an influential person and he was allegedly destroying evidence, Metropolitan Magistarte Chandra Sekhar passed an order mentioning lack of staff and adjourned the matter till March 28.

Mr Ohri said he would move an application before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate(ACMM) to transfer the matter to another court.

The Counsel submitted before the court that due to delay in registering a case and seizure of the important documents, many vital evidence were being destroyed by the accused.

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).

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.

The Metropolitan Magistrate had directed the Police to register an FIR and conduct a 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 Police had not registered a criminal complaint against the respondents. The Police had referred the matter to the Union Health Ministry.

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

UNI