HYDERABAD: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials arrested three more persons for their alleged role in the Insurance Medicine Services (IMS) department’s medicine purchase scam on Friday.
The arrested persons -- outsourced lab technician Mohammed Ghouse Pasha, pharmacist of Cherlapally dispensary V Lavanya and managing director of Teja Pharma P Rajeswar Reddy -- allegedly diverted funds, causing huge losses to the government exchequer.
IMS director Devika Rani, who was supposed to procure rate contract medicine from those firms notified by the ESI Corporation, allegedly colluded with Rajeswar Reddy and others and obtained purchase orders locally -- approximately worth `28 crore -- by bribing the officials concerned.
One of the accused Ghouse Pasha was a conduit of IMS joint director Padma, who had collected stocks of medicines and kits from IMS and dispensaries. He then handed over the same to private parties like Arvind Reddy, owner of a pharma company, and others, for their illegal sale across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Another accused Lavanya manipulated and fabricated the records of the dispensary in collusion with the staff of Special Drug Dispensing Unit of Sanathnagar, causing a loss of `17 lakh to the IMS. The newly-arrested persons were produced before the court for judicial remand. Earlier, the ACB officials has arrested 13 persons in connection with the case.