Justice C M Nayar issued the direction on Wednesday after perusing a statement submitted along with an affidavit by the Union Health Ministry giving details about the expenditure separately on some 110 politicians, bureaucrats and their kin since 1991.

The statement said that information about the expenditure on some of the beneficiaries during past three years was still being collected. The court asked standing counsel Adish Aggarwal to specify the total amount of money spent on the treatment by September 29, the next date of hearing.

According to the statement submitted in the court, the government had spent several crores of Rupees on the treatment of over 100 politicians and bureaucrats including former premiers V P Singh and P V Narasimha Rao during the past nine years.

The affidavit filed in reply to apublic interest writ has also listed the names of former ministers Arjun Singh, Capt Satish Sharma, B Shankaranand, Sheila Kaul, P Upendra, C K Jaffer Sharief, Sukh Ram, Ram Niwas Mirdha, Ajit Kumar Panja, Tarun Gogoi, former Congress president Sitaram Kesri and Congress leader Jaipal Reddy among the beneficiaries. Quoting figures of the amount spent on each individual separately for medicines, treatment, hotel stay and air travel in foreign and Indian currency, the statement said nearly Rs 50 lakh were spent on V P Singh on three occasions, and over $ 65,000 on P V Narasimha Rao on his first treatment abroad while figures for his second treatment were yet to be received.

The government spent over Rs 10 lakh on Arjun Singh who underwent treatment twice, Rs 9.73 lakhs and over $ 27,000 were spent on Kesri, the affidavit said.