MUMBAI: After over a year of probe, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) submitted its second chargesheet in the Covid field hospital money laundering case, naming four private individuals as additional accused — Sunil Kadam, Sonu Bajaj, Sanjay Parab and Ravikanth Singh. Despite multiple summons, one of the accused failed to provide their statements to the ED.
Although the chargesheet suggested BMC officials’ involvement in the conspiracy, no senior BMC officials were named as accused. The ED searched the premises of three senior officials, including an IAS officer, during the investigation. On Monday, the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court took cognizance of the ED’s supplementary chargesheet. The ED had named a total of 11 personsfirms as accused in the case.
BMC’s central purchase division awarded contracts for Covid-19 supplies to Lifeline Hospital Management Services (LHMS), co-owned by Sujit Patkar, a close associate of Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut. Junior staff members endorsed the tender documents, followed by two additional commissioners’ approvals, before the then BMC commissioner’s final authorisation.
“There were huge frauds/ irregularities in the allocation of tenders by the Central Purchase Department and other departments of the BMC during Covid-19 for setting up of Jumbo Covid Centres, their functioning and supplies to these centres,” the BMC stated in the chargesheet.
LHMS allegedly deployed fewer healthcare staff at the Jumbo centre than agreed, risking Covid-19 patients’ lives while maximising profits during a crucial pandemic phase. Between Sep 2020 and June 2022, BMC paid Rs 32.44 crore to LHMS. “Partners of LHMS Sujit Patkar, Dr Hemant Gupta, Sanjay Shah, Rajiv Salunkhe and their accomplices (Sunil Kadam and others) indulged themselves in criminal activities and hatched a conspiracy in connivance with MCGM officials and managed to obtain a tender for their firm LHMS,” the ED stated in the supplementary chargesheet.
“Further, they also managed manipulation of attendance sheets and fraudulently raised bills on the basis of such manipulated records to be submitted to MCGM authorities. MCGM officers, the dean of Jumbo Covid Centres and others also received undue personal financial gains from proceeds of crime and in lieu of that they did not ensure the required presence of doctors, nurses, ward boys, aayas etc to ICU beds, oxygenated beds and non-oxygenated beds at Dahisar and Worli Jumbo Covid Centre, rather cleared these fake and fabricated bills without due verification,” the chargesheet stated.
The ED submitted that further investigations revealed that proceeds of crime generated in the firm were diverted-siphoned off by the partners into their personal accounts and also into the accounts of their family members and their associates’ entities and persons. Further, such proceeds of crime were later utilised by these partners for their expenses and investments by projecting the same as untainted money. During the investigation, the ED attached properties worth Rs 12.23 crore in the case, including a flat worth Rs 3 crore in Oshiwara.
