Amid intensive investigation by Ahmedabad City Police Crime Branch (DCB) in three cases of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, among other serious offences, against nine accused in the alleged Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) scam. which was operated at a reputed multispecialty hospital in Ahmedabad, officials revealed in a new revelation on Saturday.
Mahesh Girdhar Barot (52) and Nagar Moti Senma (75), two beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana-Mukhya Mantri Amrutam (PMJAY-MA) scheme that had sparked outrage last month, sealed the memorandum of understanding. (MoUs) with at least five public sector organizations and the treatment of 141 patients received from these, according to details revealed during the probe.
These entities include India’s two largest public sector companies – the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation of India (ONGC), and the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), the country’s largest public sector steel producer. There was also an MoU to provide treatment to the employees of the Western Railway (WR), whose jurisdiction covers the whole of Gujarat and parts of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.
The Crime Branch also revealed that apart from the PMJAY scheme, the Khyati Multispeciality Hospital has also been listed under the Ex-Serviceman Contribution Health Scheme (ECHS) under which Indian military pensioners and their dependents can get treatment.
The Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) – one of India’s premier institutes for the study of astrophysics under the Department of Space, founded by Dr Vikram Sarabhai in Ahmedabad – was one of the five public sectors to tie up with the private Ahmedabad. the hospital The institute had two patients, officials confirmed.
These revelations came after the Crime Branch officials took the accused Dr Sanjay Mulji Patolia to Khyati Hospital on Saturday to examine the relevant files, especially the account books, in the presence of a government-appointed Chartered Accountant (CA).
Bariatric surgeon and director of the hospital’s holding company, Ahmedabad Bariatrics and Cosmetics Pvt. Ltd., Dr. Patolia, was arrested by the crime branch on December 4 as he was absconding for three weeks after three FIRs were registered in this matter. issue, on November 13. On December 5, the DCB obtained a seven-day remand of the accused.
In its statement on Saturday, the Crime Branch said that Dr Patolia was taken to a reputed hospital and another search was conducted in the office in his presence and the hospital recovered additional documents including account books and income tax records in its latest filing. 1.5 crore loss has been shown.
An investigator told The Indian Express that a government-appointed CA is studying this fresh round of data.
Meanwhile, the crime branch had earlier said on Thursday that it had widened the scope of the investigation into the hospital’s account. It said that between September 1, 2021 and October 28, 2024, the hospital treated 8,534 patients of which 3,842 were treated under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana-Mukhyamantri Amrutam (PMJAY-MA) scheme. A total of 112 patients died in the hospital during this period.
In November, the hospital conducted a medical camp in Borisana village in Mehsana district. Barot and Senma were among the seven PMJAY beneficiaries who underwent angioplasty without informed consent at the hospital after a medical camp in Borisana last month.
Notably, among the nine accused in this case, Dr. Sanjay Patolia became the seventh person to be arrested on December 4. Among those arrested earlier is visiting cardiologist Dr Prashant Prakash Vajirani, who was arrested on November 13. While director Chirag Rajput, CEO Rahul Jain and three members of the marketing team Milind Patel, Prateek Bhatt and Pankil Patel were arrested on November 26. Meanwhile, two other co-owners of the hospital, Karthik Jasu Patel and Rajshree Pradeep Kothari, are still absconding.
– Report by Brendan Davy