NEW DELHI, May 1: In a significant move, the Union Health Ministry has chargesheeted three top officials of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), including its former director general A K Mukherjee, for their alleged role in the Rs 5,000 crore medical equipment import scam.

The ministry informed a division bench of Delhi High Court comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice D K Jain, that the other two oficials of DGHS against whom chargesheets have been issued for initiation of departmental actions were deputy director general P Raja Ram, and former assistant director general V K Sinha.

Counsel for the ministry, Keshav Dayal, told the bench that the chargesheet was issued to the three officials on April 29 after clearance from the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and they have been asked to file their replies within seven days.

Regarding the other 19 cases, which have been probed into by the Chandrmouli committee appointed by the court, the bench gave two months time to the ministry to finalise the action to be taken against offficials allegedly involved in the scam.

The Health Ministry further informed the court that it would not promote any of the officials, who all were allegedly involved in the scam, till their names were cleared.

Mukherjee is at present working in the World Health Organisation (WHO) after taking retirement from DGHS and Sinha is at present on deputation to the Delhi Government.

It was alleged by a public interest litigation filed by People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) through advocate Prashant Bhusan that taking undue advantage of the Centre's notification to allow charitable hospitals to import duty free medical equipment, officials in DGHS, ministry in collusion with commercial hospitals allowed the latter to import duty free equipment causing a loss of Rs 5,000 crore to the exchequer.

The bench, taking up the issue of 112 applications still pending before the DGHS for grant of customs duty exemption certificate (CDEC), directed the authorities to take not more than three months in deciding them.

These applicants had already imported the equipment and released them from the customs on filing a bond that they would submit the cdec later. All the imports took place between March 1, 1988, and March 1, 1994.

DGHS counsel Rakesh Tiku, told the court that the directorate has taken decision not to grant any CDEC to diagnostic centres run by private individuals purely on commercial basis without an indoor facility. ``We had committed a mistake earlier (by granting them CDEC), we are not going to repeat again,'' Tiku said.

He further said that DGHS has decided to issue notices to 76 diagnostic centres, who had earlier been granted CDEC, asking them to show cause as to why their certificate be not withdrawn as they did not qualify under the norms of the notification.

The court directed the chief secretaries of all the state governments to provide within ten days any information asked by the DGHS and the special committee constituted to scrutinise the pending applications to facilitate their speedy disposal.

The court enquired about the status of the petition filed in the Supreme Court by the Ministry of Law for transfer of all related cases from various high courts to one high court. Standing counsel Meera Bhatia, for law ministry, and counsel for ministry of finance, told the court that it was lying in the registry for lack of information regarding the cases to be transferred. Both the ministries blamed each other for not cooperating in getting the relevant details annexed with the petition.

``We feel there was total lack of coordination between Ministry of Law, Ministry of Finance and Central agency in the law ministry,'' the bench said and added that ``even after a lapse of five months the law ministry does not have details of the cases.''

``One does not expect the Ministry of Law to act in the manner it has particularly when the allegations are regarding loss of Rs 4,000 crore to the exchequer,'' the bench said.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.