KOLKATA: CBI arrested Sandip Ghoshex RG Kar Medical College and hospital principal, on Friday evening after questioning people all day, whisking people away from the Special Crime Branch (SCB) office at CGO Salt Lake Complex to the anti-corruption branch (ACB) office at Nizam Palace.
SCB investigates rape-murder; ACB is investigating corruption case against Ghosh and three others. Ghosh’s arrest capped 17 days of questioning and two polygraph tests in the 21 days since the CBI took over the investigation from the police.
Three others have also been arrested for corruption: Biplab Singha (owner of Ma Tara Traders, vendor RG Kar); Suman Hazra (owner of a medical shop in Howrah, who allegedly sold recycled drugs from RG Kar Hospital); and Afsar Ali, Ghosh’s security guard.
Ghosh had been at the SCB CGO Complex office since 10 am, answering questions related to the rape-murder. Before 7pm, he was taken out and taken to the Nizam Palace CBI office in a car. He was arrested around 8 p.m.
On August 12, facing backlash over his handling of the RG Kar incident, Ghosh had resigned as principal, only to be reinstated as principal of Calcutta National within hours. School of Medicine – a move that was heavily criticized by the Calcutta High Court, which ordered a long leave.
Senior health department officials will meet on Tuesday to decide Ghosh’s fate. A 48-hour detention would result in an immediate suspension, but the state may not wait that long, sources said. Former Trinamool MP Kunal Ghosh said: “He has been arrested, probably on corruption charges. He and his lawyer will talk about it. The party has nothing to say. The allegations (against him) have been heard for a long time. Swasthya Bhavan acted to him, he could avoid this embarrassment.
On August 24, the CBI’s anti-corruption branch registered an FIR into alleged financial irregularities against RG Kar following an order from the Calcutta High Court. The agency named Ghosh in the FIR, apart from another individual – Khama Louha – and two companies (Ma Tara Traders and Ehsan Cafe). When the CBI officers began to investigate the alleged irregularities in the College and the hospital, they came across vendors who were given out contracts amounting to crores without bids and illegal sales of medicine and medical equipment allocated to the hospital.
Ghosh’s importance in the RG Kar saga goes beyond what the CBI can do in cases of corruption and irregularities in hospitals.
Former school principal RG Kar has, hundreds of doctors and other officials working in the state health department, come to symbolize – along with some of his colleagues – everything that is wrong with the state health department. A section of health department officials blamed him – and the “North Bengal lobby”, of which he was one of the most prominent faces – for various ailments. These range from the daily cost of corruption in the procurement of hospital equipment to allegations that further damage the system in the long run: the MBBS exam game by selecting or discriminating young students for cash as well as “political” considerations.
RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, in particular, has been run like a fiefdom by the “North Bengal Lobby” with Ghosh as the spearhead. Professor RG Kar said he was used to waiting for his turn to enter the former principal’s room even though it was a crowd of students and junior doctors who were in the “North Bengal lobby” and, sometimes, laboratory technicians and policemen or civilian volunteers. , spent hours inside.
The health department is aware of the incident and Ghosh has been moved at least twice out of RG Kar in the past. But each time, he comes back stronger. One of last year’s transfer orders was canceled within days and the other within weeks.
“We know everything, but every episode tells us, in derogatory terms, that we are equal to people who are more powerful than us,” a senior health department official, a few rungs above Ghosh in the hierarchy, told TOI.
It remains to be seen whether the CBI got enough on Ghosh to implicate him in the alleged efforts to cover up the crime as well.
