Sleuths of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) claimed to have arrested one more wanted accused, Mahendra, hailing from lucknow, involved in multi-crore rupees National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam on Friday. They produced him before designated CBI court in Ghaziabad on Friday and would now likely to take him on custody remand to grill him further on the matter.
Reports said that the CBI registered a case on August 27 last year, against the then Dy.CMO; the then Chief Pharmacist, both working in the office of CMO, Sultanpur; Proprietor of lucknow based private firm and others U/s 120B, 420, 467, 468, 471 of IPC and 13(2) r/w 13(1)(d) of the PC Act 1988 on the findings of a Preliminary Enquiry. The PE was registered on the orders of lucknow Bench of Allahabad High ourt.
It was alleged that during the period 2009-10, the then Dy. CMO Sultanpur entered into criminal onspiracy with then Chief Pharmacist,Sultanpur and Mahendra, Proprietor of lucknow based private company and other unknown persons.
In furtherance of the said conspiracy, the then Dy. CMO & then Chief Pharmacist allegedly certified bogus receipt of 7620 boxes of Ciprofloxacin Hydrochloride; 500 MG tablets and 2400 boxes of ibuprofen 400 mg tablet from lucknow based private firm and made bogus entries in the official records of supply of these medicines. The payment to the tune of Rs. 15,94,131/- (approx) was allegedly made to the private company, thereby causing a loss to the NRHM funds. During the course of investigation, the alleged complicity & involvement in the conspiracy of Mahendra came to light. CBI finally arrested him from Narhi in lucknow and took him to Ghaziabad to produce him before magistrate.
It may be mentioned that NRHM scam rocked during former chief minister Mayawati’s regime after one after another chief medical officers of lucknow, looking after NRHM budget were shot dead. later during probe of scam in NRHM, Babu Singh Kushwaha, former colleague of Mayawati and that minister for family welfare, was arrested and he was still in jail in the matter. CBI also found that just before his arrest, Kushwaha was planning to invest the alleged bribe money received by him into an engineering college and had set up two trusts for the purpose. He reportedly set up two Educational trusts in Kanpur and purchased two private companies to route the alleged illegal gratification with the help of his associates, sources in the CBI confirmed. The alleged bribe received by Kushwaha was first invested in companies across Kanpur, Delhi and Kolkata which then issued cheques to the two trusts as donation. Some of the money was also allegedly invested in Kushwaha’s companies which was again given as donation to the Educational Trust.
The sources said Kushwaha had allegedly taken professional help of Kanpur based Chartered Accountants to route his money through various companies back into his trusts.
They said Kushwaha had allegedly purchased a distributor firm and a coaching centre in addition to setting up two trusts to route the alleged bribe received by him to award contracts related to medical supplies under the NRHM. So far, the CBI sources claimed to have unearthed money trail of nearly Rs 40 crore which was invested into the trusts in many installments. The agency has zeroed in on at least 12 such companies for alleged routing of spoils from National Rural Health Mission funds. CBI sources said that they have found that Kushwaha, former MlA Ram Prasad Jaiswal and former Principal Secretary Pradeep Shukla allegedly played a crucial role in finalising contracts related to the NRHM programme in the state. CBI has named Kushwaha and Jaiswal as accused in the case relating to upgradation of 134 district hospitals for an amount of Rs 13.4 crore by Construction and Design Service, a unit of UP Jal Nigam, whereas Shukla has been named in three cases registered by the CBI in the NRHM scam. Besides CBI, the sleuths of the Enforcement Directorate were also looking into Kushwaha, alleged money laundering of money which was alleged to be routed back into real estate and other immovable assets by the accused.