ROURKELA: The court of Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) Sharmistha Padhi on Monday sentenced a 53-year-old man to 30 months of imprisonment for impersonating a doctor.
A habitual offender, Padmanava Mukhi Karua was caught serving in Rourkela Government Hospital (RGH) by stealing the identity of a Jharkhand doctor. Impersonating as Dr Ramesh Chandra Jha of adjacent Jharkhand, Karua had got contractual appointment in the dialysis unit of RGH through an outsourcing agency on December 26, 2023. His fake identity got revealed accidentally in June 2024. A resident of Rourkela city, Karua has studied up to Class XII.
According to police, Karua had availed a loan of about Rs 16.5 lakh from a private non-banking financial company by forging the documents of Dr Jha. However, he had failed to change the actual phone number of Dr Jha. The authorities of the finance company called Dr Jha’s number and came to know about the fraud. Subsequently, a complaint was filed in RN Pali police station. After his arrest, Karua revealed his original identity and confessed to his crime.
Assistant public prosecutor Akshay Sahu said a charge-sheet was framed against Karua under sections 419, 420, 467, 468 and 471 of the IPC. The court found him guilty and sentenced him to 30 months of imprisonment for the offence under section 419. Similarly, he was awarded one to two years of imprisonment for the other counts. All the sentences would run concurrently.
Earlier, Karua had secured a government appointment by using forged documents and served at Hathibari primary health centre (New) in Nuagaon block of Sundargarh district as a doctor for a couple of years. However, he was arrested by Sundargarh Town police on November 13, 2019 on basis of the complaint lodged by the then chief district medical officer.
Subsequently in 2022, a court in Sundargarh town sentenced Karua to five years of imprisonment. However, he managed to secure bail and was released from jail.