CHENNAI: Medical and Rural Health Services director (ESI) Dr M Ezhilarasi was arrested by a special team of the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption on charges of bribery on Thursday. She was later remanded in judicial custody.
Deputy Superintendent of Police, DVAC, M B Natarajan, who led the team, told Express that Ezhilarasi headed 192 dispensaries coming under the Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) scheme in Tamil Nadu. Recently, she had placed orders worth Rs 15 crore with pharmaceutical companies for supply of medicines to ESI dispensaries across the State and reportedly demanded Rs 10 lakh as commission from them.
Natarajan said the DVAC received intelligence reports that money was going to change hands and laid a trap for the senior official. On Wednesday, Ezhilarasi was caught red-handed while accepting Rs 8.53 lakh from representatives of five pharmaceutical companies, Kalpesh Shah of Upkar Pharma, which reportedly bagged Rs 2-crore order, Suresh Babu of First Generation, Aravamudhan, liaison officer for First Generation, Purushottaman of Aravind Remedies and Srinivasan of Tablets India, around 9 pm at her house in ESI Quarters at Ayanavaram.
A search conducted in the house, however, did not yield anything, sources said.Ezilarasi and the five men were produced before the Principal and Special Sessions Judge, Devadoss, who remanded them to 15 days judicial custody. All the six were later lodged in Puzhal jail. Sources said the arrest of the senior government official was the DVAC’s 100th case in the last four months. Another unique feature was that not only the bribe taker but also the bribe givers were arrested. Meanwhile, Ezhilarasi filed an application seeking bail. She submitted that she was innocent and was falsely implicated in the case.