Mumbai: Sanjay Raut aide, doc held in jumbo centre scam

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has finally made the first arrests in the alleged COVID-19 jumbo centre scam. The agency on Thursday arrested Sujit Patker, a close aide of Shiv Sena leader (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut and Dr Kishore Bisure, dean of the Dahisar jumbo centre.

The ED has alleged that fraud worth Rs 31.84 crore occurred during the pandemic. According to the ED, BMC officials had connived with private companies to profit from the situation.

The accused were produced in the court on Thursday and have been remanded in ED custody until July 27.

After allegations of misappropriation of funds were raised, the Mumbai Police registered an offence and the ED launched its investigation into the matter in August 2022. During the investigation, the ED found that Lifeline Hospital Management Services had received Rs 31.84 crore from the supply of medical personnel to
COVID centres.

The investigators uncovered huge discrepancies in attendance sheets and documents submitted to BMC by the staff of Lifeline Hospital Management services. Patker is one of the four partners of the company, which was founded on June 26, 2020, and lacked any experience when it came to providing medical personnel services. Yet, it managed to obtain a contract to provide staff to NSCI (Worli) and Dahisar jumbo COVID centres from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. Patker was allegedly instrumental in obtaining the contract.

To verify the staff enrolled by the company for COVID centres, letters were issued to the doctors, nurses and staff who had purportedly provided services during the pandemic to these jumbo centres. But most of these letters were returned undelivered. Also, some of the persons who received the letters told ED that they had only attended interviews and submitted their documents with the company.

The ED found these persons were shown as employees of the COVID centres and their attendance records were submitted to BMC to receive funds. Also, some employees were present at the centre for some days, but forgery had been done to make it seem that they were around for longer. The ED has alleged that on the instructions of Patker, Dr Bisure fabricated bills, despite the huge under-deployment of medical staff to the extent of 50-60 per cent, and the same were submitted to BMC authorities.

The agency has also found that Dr Bisure received a laptop, cash and some funds in the account of his driver to help Patker's company clear bills and get the money. The ED suspects that executing an offence of this magnitude was not possible without the implicit complicity of senior functionaries of the BMC. The preliminary investigation has revealed that at least 50-60 per cent of medical staff was non-existent.

The ED had demanded eight days' custody of the accused to interrogate and corroborate evidence.

2022
Year ED launched probe into ‘scam'