The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials are carrying out a multi-angle investigation in the matter of financial irregularities at state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital involving 15 specific charges of fund fudging, sources have said. The main allegation is the tendering of different contracts to private and outsourced parties without getting the necessary approval from the state health department and the college council.
A whistleblower in the matter and the former deputy superintendent of R.G. Kar, Akhtar Ali mentioned specifics of such irregularities on these lines in the related petition filed at Calcutta High Court, acting on which the court had ordered CBI enquiry. In the petition, the whistleblower had also named some private beneficiaries who were awarded the contracts while flouting all norms and protocols. The CBI has started the investigation after filing an FIR against the RG Kar authorities and its former principal Dr Sandip Ghosh. The second angle of the central agency investigation is on charges of getting the infrastructure-related tasks of the hospital done by private outsourced entities or individuals instead of following the standard practice of getting them done by the state Public Works Department (PWD).
Another serious charge, sources said, is selling biomedical wastes outside the hospital which is totally illegal. There had also been allegations against Ghosh of using the hospital to earn money through businesses run in the name of others, which is a highly serious offence on the part of a government official. There had also been charges against Ghosh of resorting to gross irregularities in the appointment of contractual staff at RG Kar, sources said.
The investigating officials, sources added, are taking the complaint of the whistleblower seriously that the state health department ignored the matter after he brought these irregularities to the notice of the department last year. Even the single-judge bench of Justice Rajarshi Bhardwaj, during the hearing on Ali’s petition a few days back, raised questions on why the whistleblower’s complaint was ignored then.