NRHM scam: HC grants bail to former CMO Shukla

Dr A K Shukla was granted bail by Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Monday.

Dr A K Shukla,former CMO Lucknow and main accused in the NRHM funds embezzlement case,was granted bail by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Monday.

Justice Ashwani Kumar Singh,who passed the order,said the CBI,which is investigating the case,can move for cancellation of the bail if it finds that Dr Shukla is not co-operating,or tampering with evidence.

Along with slain Deputy CMO Dr YS Sachan,Dr Shukla was named in the FIR lodged by the Department of Family Welfare on April 7 in connection with the financial irregularities which surfaced after the murder of former CMO Dr BP Singh.

While the police arrested Dr Sachan promptly,it arrested Dr Shukla on July 17 after a Lucknow court summoned the investigating officer and questioned him about the progress of the case.

On July 22,the court rejected his bail application with the observation that Dr Shukla could not have evaded arrest for so long without the patronage of the government and the police.

Dr Shukla was the CMO of Lucknow from 2007 till April 2011. Allegations against him include payments,running into several lakh rupees,made for fictitious hiring of vehicles,manpower and doctors and payments made in violation of rules under NRHM and the National Blindness Eradication Programme.

His counsel Rishad Murtaza said two similar FIRs were lodged for financial irregularities,the first on April 5 and the second on April 7,but Dr Shukla was named only in the second FIR. It is quite surprising that only in two days the complicity of the applicant was revealed with some of the allegations being similar, Murtaza said.

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He said the only specific allegation against Dr Shukla was that he made payments to private firms without the sanction of the District Health Committee or District Magistrate.

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