Ex-health minister Ramadoss chargesheeted by CBI for abusing official position

The 36-page chargesheet named the PMK leader and nine others, including two senior government officials and two doctors of Safdarjung Hospital here and five people associated with the private hospital in Indore, which allegedly gained financially in 2008.

Ramadoss was the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare from May, 2004 till April 2009 in UPA-I.

CBI also filed a chargesheet against K V S Rao, Director in the Cabinet Secretariat, Sudershan Kumar, Section Officer of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW) and Dr J S Dhupia and Dr Dipendra Kumar Gupta of Safdarjung Hospital.

The chargesheet, filed before Special CBI Judge Talwant Singh, also named Suresh Singh Bhadoria, Chairman of Index Medical College Hospital and Research Centre (IMCHRC), Dr S K Tongia, ex-Dean of the college, Dr K K Saxena, Medical Director of the college, Nitin Gothwal and Dr Pawan Bhambani.

Ramadoss , Rao, Kumar and the two doctors of Safdarjung Hospital have been charged by the agency under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC along with offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Bhadoria and the other four have been charged with offences of cheating and forgery. Bhadoria has also been charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

According to the chargesheet, Ramadoss and the other accused conspired with each other in permitting IMCHRC admission for second year despite the fact that the Medical Council of India (MCI) and a committee appointed by the Supreme Court had "repeatedly recommended" that IMCHRC did not have sufficient faculty and clinical material required by norms.

Along with the chargesheet, the CBI has filed a list of 117 prosecution witnesses and 218 documents in the court.

The agency told the court that Rao, Sudershan Kumar, Dr Dhupia and Dr Gupta are public servants for whom sanction for prosecution was required.

The said they have got sanction against the three accused while sanction against Rao was awaited.

According to the CBI, the accused entered into a conspiracy in which IMCHRC gained pecuniary advantage in the form of permission for admission of the second batch of MBBS students for the academic year 2008-09, ignoring the recommendations of the MCI.

The MCI made it clear that permission may not be granted to IMCHRC due to deficiencies observed by its inspectors.

The agency said Rao was the then Deputy Secretary in MHFW and all files related to grant of permission/renewal of a medical college would go to the competent authority through him, while Sudershan Kumar was the section officer in the ministry.

"It is established that Bhadoria in conspiracy with Ramadoss , Rao, Kumar inspected by a central team consisting of Dhupia and Gupta on September 25, 2008 with a view to obtain favourable inspection report for the purpose of issuing permission for renewal of the college for admission for second year in spite of the fact that the inspector of MCI, executive board along with Adhoc Committee constituted by the Supreme Court had repeatedly recommended that the college did not have sufficient faculty and clinical material required as per the MCI norms," the chargesheet said.

"Thus in this matter, the aforesaid public servant abused their position to cause pecuniary advantage to the college," it said.

The chargesheet said one Mayank's Welfare Society was formed in 1996 and in 2005, the society proposed to open a medical college and dental college and Bhadoria was authorised to do the correspondence with regulatory agencies for getting the course affiliated/recognised.

The society was given permission for establishing a new medical college for the academic session 2007-08 by a September 28, 2007 letter with the approval of Ramadoss for a period of one year with the annual intake of 150 students.

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