Expressing disappointment with the state government, the Telangana High Court on Wednesday gave a three-week ultimatum to take action against the diet contractor of Niloufer Hospital, who has been accused of misappropriating funds to the tune of Rs 3 crore by tampering with diet indent.
The High Court directed the Telangana government to take action against the contractor K Suresh Babu by September 16 and submit a report of the same. The bench of Chief Justice Raghavendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy was shocked that despite adverse reports against the contractor, he has not been blacklisted yet.
“Why no action has been taken against the contractor in spite of adverse reports and why is the state allowing him to work in other hospitals? Why has he not been blacklisted yet?,” the bench was quoted as saying by The New Indian Express. Suresh is also a contractor of Gandhi and Chest Hospital.
A Public Interest Litigation accusing the contractor of committing irregularities was filed by Bhagawanth Rao, a Hyderabad resident, who is a member of Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samithi. Following inquiry into the allegations by the Niloufer Superintendent, the report found that Suresh was drawing excess bills and resorted to misappropriation funds, according to The Hindu.
Suresh resorted to tampering with diet indents written by ward nurses and converted normal diet into therapeutic diet to inflate the bills, the committee probing the irregularities established.
There was a huge difference between the number of diet indents and the entries in the diet supply register, and duplication of diet bills for the same patient was also noticed in the inquiry report.
Suresh misappropriated funds of about Rs 1.13 crore for three fiscal years-- 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-2020.
The diet contractor’s counsel and former Advocate General of Andhra Pradesh Dammalapati Srinivas, meanwhile, argued that the action against Suresh Babu should be in accordance with law. He appealed to the court not to declare the diet contractor as the accused as the matter was still being heard and not adjudicated.