ED raids in 10 states in medical colleges inspection bribery case

NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday conducted coordinated searches in ten states as part of a money laundering investigation linked to alleged bribery and manipulation of the regulatory framework governing certain medical colleges in the country, officials said.

At least 15 locations in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi are being covered. These include seven premises of medical colleges and certain private persons.

The action is being undertaken under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the officials said. The money laundering case stems from a June 30 registered FIR of the CBI where it was alleged that bribes had been paid to government officials, including officials of the National Medical Commission (NMC) in lieu of disclosing confidential information pertaining to the inspection of medical colleges to the key managerial persons related to medical colleges and middlemen.

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FIR against 34 from health ministry, 5 doctors from NMC

This allegedly enabled them to manipulate the parameters and obtain approval for running academic courses at the medical colleges, according to ED officials. The CBI had claimed to have busted a network of officials of the Union Health Ministry and the NMC, intermediaries and representatives of private medical colleges, who were allegedly involved in "egregious" acts, including graft and manipulation of procedures.

It had named 34 people in the FIR, including eight officials of the health ministry, one from the National Health Authority and five doctors who were part of the National Medical Commissioner (NMC) inspection team.

According to officials who spoke earlier, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested eight people in the case which included three doctors of the NMC team who were held for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 55 lakh for giving a favourable report to a Chhattisgarh-based medical college.

The CBI FIR alleged that the syndicate had its roots in the Union Health Ministry, where eight accused officials ran the sophisticated scheme facilitating unauthorised access, illegal duplication and dissemination of highly confidential files and sensitive information to representatives of medical colleges through a network of intermediaries in exchange for huge bribes.

It was alleged that the officials, in collusion with the intermediaries, manipulated the statutory inspection process conducted by the NMC by disclosing inspection schedules and identities of the designated assessors to the medical institutions concerned well in advance of the official communication.

This critical information pertaining to the regulatory status and internal processing of medical institutions in the ministry gave an "alarming" degree of leverage to colleges, allowing them to orchestrate elaborate deceptions to hoodwink the inspection process, according to the CBI.