The Enforcement Directorate (ED) made its first arrest in the ₹4,000 crore BMC Covid Centre scam by taking into custody on Thursday Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut’s close aide Sujit Patkar and Dr Kishore Bisure, who heads the BMC Dahisar Jumbo Covid Centre.
Patkar and Bisure were produced at a special PMLA court on Thursday afternoon and were remanded to eight days ED custody.
Contract Awarded to Lifeline Hospital Management Services
Patkar is one of the four partners of Lifeline Hospital Management Services, which was awarded the contract to run the BMC Jumbo Covid Centres at Worli and Dahisar.
Patkar invested just Rs12,500 for incorporating Lifeline Management Services just weeks before bagging the contract for supplying manpower to BMC Jumbo Covid Centres at Worli and Dahisar, the ED alleged, adding that he got payments totalling Rs31.84 crore by submitting fake bills.
The agency alleged that Patkar and Bisure tampered with attendance sheets of people employed at the covid centres and thus inflated the number of people at these places by about 60% to produce fake bills.
Involvement of Dr. Kishore Bisure
Bisure approved the bogus bills of inflated manpower, for which payments were made into the account of his driver Rajkumar Vishwakarma, the ED alleged.
Patkar had siphoned off more than Rs22 crore of the total Rs31.84 crore received from BMC into shell companies for further kickbacks to senior BMC officials and political leaders, it alleged.
Previous Questioning of IAS Officer Sanjeev Jaiswal
The ED had, last month, questioned 1996 batch IAS officer Sanjeev Jaiswal for more than 10 hours at its Ballard Estate office about several irregularities in procurement of medical supplies and approval of suppliers to the five BMC Jumbo Covid Centres.
ED’s searches at Jaiswal’s Bandra residence had led to seizure of several property documents allegedly valued at more than Rs100 crore, fixed deposits receipts of Rs15 crore and jewellery.
Irregularities in Emergency Purchases
Jaiswal, who is currently MHADA CEO, was the BMC additional municipal commissioner during Covid pandemic.
The probe agency had conducted simultaneous raids on 21 June at 15 locations in Mumbai and Thane region in the Covid Jumbo Centre scam linked to BMC officials and close aides of the Thackeray family. Preliminary investigation had shown irregularities in Rs4,000 crore emergency purchase of PPE kits, gloves, masks, ventilators and oxygen supply at inflated rates favoring select vendors with no prior experience.
