STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Drugs Control Department, notorious for alleged corruption, came for a huge shock on Monday as State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) carried out simultaneous raids at Central Store, Government Medical College Hospital, Jammu Government Hospital Gandhi Nagar, Government Hospital Sarwal besides Sub District Hospital, Marh and lifted huge quantity of samples of drugs, being administered and supplied to patients.
Essentially domain of the Drug Control Department, the SVO carried out raids following inputs about spurious drugs being supplied and alleged nexus between the drug mafia the accredited department. The Drug Control Department has hugely failed in checking the sale and supply of spurious drugs in government hospitals as well as in the open markets. Allegedly on the pay roll of drug mafia, some unscrupulous officials of the department are reportedly facilitating the supply of spurious drugs.
Jammu SSP Shabir Ahamd Malik said that the raids were conducted following the inputs that Department of Health Services Jammu had purchased ‘spurious’ drugs on exorbitant rates, thus posing risk to the lives of poor patients.
“The drugs have been purchased without adopting codal formalities thereby causing loss to the state exchequer in connivance with the suppliers to confer undue benefit upon them with ulterior motive,” said SSP Vigilance.
Sources said that the SVO took exception to the failure of Drugs Control Department in carrying out random checking after lifting samples.
The Vigilance sleuths who conducted the raids at central stores said the involvement of Drug Control Organisation cannot be ruled out as they have never checked the medicines being sold and supplied to patients.
Here it is pertinent to mention that on April 28, 2013, a huge racked rocked Jammu and Kashmir state when spurious antibiotic drug, Maximizin-625, was supplied to reputed hospitals of the State. Due to public hue and cry, the investigation was handed over to Crime Branch.
Lotika Khajuria, Drug Controller, who was a member of the then purchase Committee-II in GMC Jammu was also booked in the case.
On June 20, 2013, the Crime Branch presented charge-sheet in the court of Special Judge Anticorruption Jammu against 14 persons and approached the Government for according sanction to prosecute the serving Government servants, whose involvement had also surfaced in the scam.
The accused against whom chargesheet was presented included, Ashok Kumar Raina and Amardeep Raina, sons of Baskar Nath Raina of Vinayak Nagar, Akhil Kumar Gadoo, son of I K Gadoo of Tomal Colony Bohri, Prem Prakash Barnwal, son of Ganesh Prasad of UP and his wife Manjula Barnwal, both Directors of M/s Sanative Pharmaceuticals, Manoj Kumar Agarwal, son of Krishen Murari Agarwal of Patna (chemist in M/s Sanative Pharmaceuticals), Rahul Kumar Singh, son of Triguna Singh of Chapra Bihar, Mukesh Agarwal, Prop of M/s Suraj Enterprises c/o Yogesh Dhawan of Satya Vihar Dehradun, Zubair Ahmad, son of Sain Mohammad of Jasola Vihar near Delhi, Neeraj Agarwal, son of Salekh Chandra Agarwal of New Delhi, Sunil Gupta, son of B K Gupta of Channi Himmat, Dr A K Sharma, the then Medical Superintendent SMGS Hospital, Dr Aniece Choudhary, the then Principal Government Medical College Jammu and Dr S C Khajuria, the then Assistant Director Family Welfare Department. The offences under Section 274, 420, 465, 467, 468, 471 and 12-B RPC read with Section 5(2) PC Act, 2006 haf been established against all these accused.
