CBI sleuths on Sunday conducted searches on the premises of former principal of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital Sandip Ghosh, ex-medical superintendent Sanjay Vashisth, and 13 others in and around Kolkata in connection with their probe into alleged financial irregularities at the institute, officials said.
Case pertains to alleged irregularities in supplying materials to the hospital for management and the care of patients. The anti-corruption branch of the CBI based in Kolkata searched the residence and offices of those engaged in supplying materials for management and the care of patients at the hospital after its administration had come under the scanner following the rape and murder of a doctor.
The CBI has booked Ghosh and three private entities of Kolkata—Ma Tara Traders of Madhya Jhorehat, Banipur, Howrah; Eshan Cafe of 4/1, Belgachia; and Khama Louha—in an FIR registered on the directions of the Calcutta High Court. During the search operation, the premises of all these entities named in the FIR were searched.
Interrogated over the presence of incriminating evidence, he responded, "Bahut kuch hai (There is a lot)." The agency has filed the FIR against Ghosh and the private entities with the same sections of the Indian Penal Code—120 B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating)—and also provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
At one of his residencies in Beliaghata, at least seven officers from the CBI quizzed Ghosh from about 8 am. The CBI interrogators also quizzed Vashisth, former medical superintendent and vice-principal of the hospital, and another professor of the forensic-medicine department of the medical establishment.
Along with a massive contingent of central forces, the team reached the residence of Ghosh around 6 a.m. but had to wait for nearly one-and-a-half-hours before he opened the doors, they said.
The other officers of the central agency went to the residence of a supplier in
Howrah, they added.
Another official said, 'Vashisth is being grilled on how much he knew about the financial irregularities that occurred in the hospital during his tenure as the MSVP.'
Another team of CBI officers also conducted searches in the ex-principal's office in the hospital and also went to the canteen in the academic building.
They also urged the incumbent principal, Manas Kumar Bandyopadhyay to come to the hospital in the morning and stay by their side when they would be conducting their survey inside the hospital.
An MSc trainee woman doctor was allegedly raped and killed inside the seminar hall of the hospital on August 9, following which a Kolkata Police civic volunteer was arrested, on that incident, produced in court.
Doctors and citizens were protesting in the country due to this gruesome crime. The Calcutta High Court had directed the CBI, the central investigating agency, which pressed the murder charges against Sushil Modi other than the charges of financial irregularities.
