Having taken cognizance of the Covid-19 vaccination fraud that came to light in a city cooperative housing society last week, the Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed the Maharashtra government and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to formulate a policy to prevent recurrence of such frauds and also book the kingpin behind the fraud unearthed in the metropolis.
Hearing a public interest litigation filed by social activist a PIL filed by lawyer Anita Shekhar Castellino and Adv. Siddharth Chandrashekhar, a HC bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G. S. Kulkarni asked the Mumbai Police to submit the status report on its investigations into the fake vaccination racket by Thursday.
Directing the BMC to keep a track of ongoing private vaccinations in various housing societies in the metropolis and also ensure that senior citizens did not suffer, the HC bench observed: “”There has to be a policy. Some intimation or communication among housing societies, hospitals, civic body, so that such incidents do not happen”
“What is the most unfortunate thing here is that when the whole of humanity is suffering, some people are still playing frauds of this kind... The State and the BMC must come up with a policy or guidelines on an SOS basis for private vaccination camps to avoid similar incidents in future,” the HC bench said.
The HC bench told the State Hovernment and BMC not to take such incidents lightly, and wanted to know if the fraudsters were being booked under stringent provisions of the Epidemic Diseases Act, or the Disaster management Act. “See to it that the investigation is not delayed. Tell us what is the progress of the investigation.. These are serious issues. Fraudsters are playing with the lives of innocent people,” th+e Judges said.
Senior Advocate Anil Sakhare, representing the BMC, told the court that the Mumbai Police was already investigating the issue and the civic body has also initiated the necessary measures
On his part, State's counsel Deepak Thakare told the High Court that of the five accused in the vaccination fraud reported from Kandivli-based Hiranandani Heritage Society, four had been arrested and an accused doctor was on the run.
The High Court directed the Mumbai police to arrest all accused persons. It will hear the plea further on June 24.
It may be recalled 62 hours after the office bearers of Hiranandani Heritage Residents’ Welfare Association (HHRWA) lodged a complaint with them, ther Kandivli police had arrested four persons behind the alleged fraud.. The HHRWA office bearers had alleged that the three alleged fraudsters collected Rs 4.92 lakh from 390 residents, housekeeping staff, security guards, drivers or domestic helpers on May 30 for conducting a vaccination camp.
The camp was conducted by three facilitators, including Rajesh Pandey and Sanjay Gupta, who claimed to represent leading private hospitals like the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital (KDAH) and the Nanavati Hospital. They agreed to provide 400 vaccine doses for around Rs 1,260 each, for which the society paid around Rs 4.92 lakh. However the vaccination facilitator did not provide receipts for the money taken.
On their part, the KDAH and the Nanavati Hospital had distanced themselves from the questionable vaccination camp by saying that they had nothing to do with the vaccination camp conducted at Hiranandani Heritage Society.
They said that they were not approached by the housing society.
The residents got suspicious after as none of the beneficiaries were given the vaccination certificates. They also noticed that the vials used for the vaccination camp bore 'Not For Sale' stamps.
The society members approached one of the facilitators Sanjay Gupta for vaccination certificates. However, Gupta said that the certificates would be given after 3-4 days. Later on the residents found out after June 8 that the certificates were being generated from different hospitals in the city, without the date of vaccination i.e., May 30.
Before long, some of the aggrieved residents checked their status on CoWin only to learn that they were yet to get their first vaccine dose, a development that prompted the HHRWA to lodge a complaint with the police.