KOLKATA: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday submitted a report to the Calcutta High Court regarding “illegal appointment” of house staff at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital during the tenure of former principal Dr Sandip Ghosh. CBI’s probe into the rape-murder of a trainee doctor and the alleged financial irregularities at the Kolkata hospital has revealed corruption in appointment of house staff by Dr Ghosh, sources said.
“The central probing agency told a special CBI court that Ghosh and his aides, who are also co-accused in the case, rigged students’ results to appoint candidates of their choice as house staff after the completion of their MBBS internships,” said a source in the CBI.
The central agency also flagged the lack of transparency in appointments and said in its report that Ghosh “bypassed the process and straightaway appinted house staff of his choice.”
Investigating the recruitment process during 2022 and 2023, the CBI claimed that the doctors of the medical college had no idea about any panel for house staff selections, the source said.
“The report cited CBI submissions to the court which mentions that Ghosh came up with ‘interviews’ for the selection process. For the ‘fictitious interviews’, Ghosh would allegedly make a list of candidates of his choice without considering merit.
Marks of these interviews were also added to the final MBBS scores of the favoured candidates, picked against payments to Ghosh’s cronies,” the source said.
The lack of transparency in the whole process can be gauged from the fact that the appointment letters of the house staff only mentioned the final marks, the source said.
The probe has also revealed that the arrested former principal was operating a “criminal nexus” along with the other “co-accused” for “wrongful gains”. “This included rigging of biddings for providing hospital contracts to his favoured vendors,” the source said.