HYDERABAD: A case was registered at the Keesara police station on Thursday against a pharmacist of the Cherlapally central prison for allegedly cheating a medical store owner to the tune of Rs 15 lakh.
Enquiries revealed that the pharmacist, in connivance with the prisons doctor, cheated several medical stores to the tune of over Rs 80 lakh.
Malla Reddy, who runs Ayyappa Medical Store near Rampally in Nagaram, complained to Keesara police on Thursday that V Mallaiah, a pharmacist at the jail, had bought medicines worth Rs 15 lakh from him in June last on 3-month credit. He supplied the medicines since the pharmacist produced documents with the signature and stamp of the prison authorities as proof of authenticity.
Apart from the medicines on credit, Mallaiah had also borrowed Rs 10 lakh from Malla Reddy. “Mallaiah purchased the medicines for prisoners but it seems he never delivered it there. He has not made any payment. When Malla Reddy approached the jail superintendent, he was told that the jail was in no way concerned with the purchase,” said P Guruva Reddy, inspector, Keesara police.
Police registered a case of cheating under Section 420 of IPC and launched investigation.
According to sources in the prison, Dr Ravindrani and pharmacist Mallaiah had first bought medicines worth Rs 30 lakh on credit from Arogya Dhanwantari medical store at AS Rao Nagar in June last, and encashed it by selling elsewhere. After three months, they did the same thing with GP Medical Hall at Gandhi Hospital and duped the store to the tune of Rs 10 lakh. Subsequently, they duped Bandan Medical Hall in ECIL to the tune of Rs 5 lakh. Further, in the next couple of months, they duped Ayyappa Medical Store at Nagaram to the tune of Rs 15 lakh.
According to sources, the duo approached the Canara Bank’s Secunderabad branch and got a loan of Rs 16 lakh in the name of Malla Reddy, owner of Ayyappa Medical Hall, by taking him into confidence. They took Rs 8 lakh for themselves and paid the rest to Malla Reddy’s suppliers and promised Reddy that they would clear the loan themselves. Also, they approached Shriram Chits and availed a loan of Rs 10 lakh in the name of Ayyappa Medical Hall.
A few days ago the proprietors of Ayyappa Medical Hall and Arogya Dhanwantary approached the Cherlapally prison authorities with the credit bills when the whole fraud came to light. The doctor-pharmacist duo have been at large for the past couple of days, jail authorities said.
When contacted, Vinoy Kumar Singh, director-general (prisons) said: “This is an allegation. We do not know what exactly has happened. We will conduct our internal audit and police too are investigating.”
However, he said a doctor and a pharmacist were deputed to the prison from the health department and that they were not prison staff. “We need to know who all are involved in the scam if at all the allegation is true. No one will be spared if found guilty,” he assured.