4 held for selling medicines meant for govt scheme

The arrested persons have been identified as Attar Singh (46),a pharmacist in a CGHS dispensary at Nanak Pura,Satish Kumar (40),Sanjeev Kumar (40) and Manoj Kumar (27). They were arrested from Gole market on Wednesday.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ashok Chand said,“Singh has been running this racket for the last 18 months,causing a loss of Rs 18 lakh to the exchequer. The medicines procured were sold at 50 per cent of the prescribed rates.”

Singh reportedly admitted during questioning that he made more than Rs 8 lakh from the scam,which he later invested in buying property. The police have recovered medicines with the ‘CGHS supply: Not for sale’ stamp (worth Rs 1 lakh),47 CGHS cards,seven stamps of doctors from AIIMS and Safdarjung Hospital,and 29 OPD cards of various speciality hospitals.

From the CGHS data bank,Singh had recovered names of cardholders who did not use their cards for more than three years. Using this data,he allegedly made fresh cards. “Till date,he was issued 47 such cards from CGHS dispensaries at Nauroji Nagar,Malviya Nagar,Netaji Nagar,Moti Bagh,RK Puram Sectors 2,3,4,6,8 and 12,” Chand said.

Later,Sanjeev Kumar got OPD cards issued from various government hospitals in the name of the cardholder. Singh would then fill in the names of the medicines he wanted,and procure them from the dispensary after forging the signatures of doctors.

Manoj Kumar’s task was to sell the medicines in the market. He would remove CGHS stickers from the medicines and put them up for sale,police said.