The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has uncovered a network comprising officials from the Union Health Ministry, the National Medical Commission (NMC), intermediaries, and representatives of private medical colleges, for its alleged involved in a series of “egregious” acts, including corruption and the unlawful manipulation of the regulatory framework governing the medical colleges, reported news agency PTI.
The agency has named 34 individuals in its First Information Report (FIR). Among these are eight officials from the Health Ministry, one official from the National Health Authority, and five doctors who were part of the National Medical Commission (NMC) inspection team.
Moreover, the officials have confirmed that the CBI recently arrested eight individuals in connection with this case. This includes three doctors from the NMC team, who were apprehended for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 55 lakh. This bribe was reportedly given for providing a favourable report to the a Naya Raipur medical institute.
The CBI FIR alleges that the syndicate`s origins lie within the Union Health Ministry. The eight accused officials are said to have operated a sophisticated scheme facilitating unauthorised access, illegal duplication, and the dissemination of highly confidential files and sensitive information to representatives of medical colleges through a network of intermediaries, in exchange for substantial bribes, reported PTI.
Furthermore, the FIR alleges that these officials, in collusion with the intermediaries, manipulated the statutory inspection process conducted by NMC. This was achieved by disclosing inspection schedules and the identities of the designated assessors to the medical institutions concerned well in advance of the official communication.
The CBI has also named the Union Health Ministry`s officials as accused in the FIR. They allegedly located files and clicked photographs of notings and comments made by senior officers.
According to the CBI, “this critical information about the regulatory status and internal processing of medical institutions in the ministry gave an alarming degree of leverage to colleges, allowing them to orchestrate elaborate deceptions to hoodwink the inspection process.”
Meanwhile, the FIR states, “Such prior disclosures have enabled medical colleges to orchestrate fraudulent arrangements, including the bribing of assessors to secure favourable inspection reports, the deployment of non-existent or proxy faculty (ghost faculty), and the admission of fictitious patients to artificially project compliance during inspections, and tampering with the biometric attendance systems to falsify.”
The agency has also detailed instances of bribes, amounting to lakhs of rupees, being exchanged between NMC teams, intermediaries, and representatives of medical colleges. These funds were reportedly routed through hawala channels and utilised for multiple purposes, including one instance in the name of constructing a temple.
(With inputs from PTI)