Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 21: Cracking whip on supplier of spurious drugs, the Crime Branch, Jammu wing, today conducted raids at office and residences of owners and partner of M/s Life Line Pharmaco Surgicals here and arrested one of the accused. During raids, the investigating agency, which registered a First Information Report (FIR) in the case this morning after the case was handed over to it by the Government, seized records pertaining to supply of spurious drugs and some other incriminating documents.
Official sources said within hours of the registration of FIR, the Crime Branch sleuths raided the residence of Life Line Pharma owners Amardeep Raina and Ashok Kumar Raina, both brothers and sons of BN Raina R/o Vinayak Nagar, Sector-2 Muthi and their partner Akhil Gadoo son of IK Gadoo R/o Dhumal Colony, Talab Tillo.
While Amardeep Raina was said to be in New Delhi, the Crime Branch arrested Ashok Raina. Akhil Gadoo was absconding.
The Crime Branch searched houses and offices of the suppliers at Muthi and Dream City and seized a number of incriminating documents especially those pertaining to the supply of spurious drugs to the Government hospitals.
The Crime Branch has dispatched a team to New Delhi for the arrest of Amardeep Raina while teams were searching Gadoo in Jammu. Sources said the license of Life Line Pharma was on the name of Amardeep Raina but his brother, Ashok Kumar Raina in partnership with Gadoo, was doing the work on his behalf.
Preliminary investigations by the Crime Branch have revealed that Life Line Pharma had procured spurious drugs from Dehradun (Uttarakhand) based company and supplied them to the Government hospitals.
Sources said the same company of Dehradun has reportedly supplied spurious drugs to some Government hospitals at Rajasthan also. A Crime Branch team would shortly leave for Dehradun to investigate credentials of the company, which was likely to be named in the FIR during the investigations.
Sources said all officials of Purchase Committee and others involved in the process of procuring spurious drugs for the hospitals have also been booked in the FIR No 10/2013 under Sections 274, 420, 465, 467, 468, 471, 120-B RPC read with Section 5(2) Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 27 of Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
The Crime Branch, Jammu wing, registered the FIR this morning after the State Government yesterday handed over the case to it after preliminary report submitted by the Departmental Committee.
The FIR was registered against Proprietors of M/s Life Line Pharmaco Surgicals,130/4 Dream City, Muthi, Jammu and members of the purchase Committee-II of Health and Medical Education Department with regard to supply/purchase of spurious drugs.
The Crime Branch said a report on inquiry into the lapses leading to purchase of spurious drugs, submitted by the Committee constituted by the Government revealed that M/s Life Line Pharmaco Surgicals through its proprietors participated in the tender process flouted by the Government for the supply of drugs `Amoxicillin Trihydrate IP` equivalent to Amoxicillin 500 mg and `Potassium Clavulanate Diluted IP` equivalent to Clavulanate Acid 125 mg.
It had quoted the rate for 10X10 tablets at Rs. 428.40 Paisa for the drug manufactured by M/s Medley Pharmaceuticals Ltd. They also produced an authorization certificate purportedly issued by M/s Medley Pharmaceuticals Ltd. to this effect. However, Medley has already denied its involvement in the supply. Sources said the authorization of Medley had been forged by the supplier.
The rate quoted by M/s Life Line Pharmaco Surgicals was found to be the lowest by the purchase committee-II and accordingly the rates were approved and supply orders were placed by the indenting officers for supply of 2,65,000 tablets. The tablets were supplied by the supplier along with an in house testing/analytical report purportedly generated by M/s AFFY Parenterals, showing quantity of drugs manufactured under Batch No. BPT 1583 as 2,50,000 whereas the drugs supplied under the same batch were 2,65,000.
During the course of enquiry, it came to fore that M/s Medley Pharmaceuticals Ltd. had not issued any authorization to M/s Life Line Pharmaco Surgicals and that Proprietors of M/s Life Line Pharmaco Surgicals had entered into the tendering process/supply of drugs by producing fake and fabricated authorization certificate/reports of the original manufacturer without any legal authorization and supplied spurious drugs in connivance with the officers/officials of the Purchase Committee-II, constituted by the Government.
The officials without verifying the tender documents and credentials of the supplier approved the rate contract by abusing their official position thereby causing wrongful gain to the suppliers and huge wrongful loss to the public exchequer besides compromising with lives of the patients.
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