New Delhi, Oct 21 (PTI) The Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) has received the approval of competent authority to register an FIR against 10 officials of Hedgewar Hospital in east Delhi, including six doctors, in connection with clearance of "inflated" bills of a private medicine supplier, officials said on Tuesday.

The ACB had in March last year sought approval for investigating the 10 officials of the hospital which is under the Delhi government, they said.

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According to documents, the internal fact-finding committee of the hospital arrived at the conclusion that the accused private medicine supplier submitted "inflated" bills allegedly in connivance with the hospital staff and received undue payments.

An order issued by the Vigilance Directorate last Monday said that the "Lt Governor being the competent authority to grant approval, in the exercise of powers conferred by Section 17 A of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 has accorded approval to register a case against the 10 officials of Hedgewar hospital."

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The matter was related to discrepancies in payments made to the private medicine supplier of the hospital between December 2013 and January 2014 bills, said the order.

A case was registered at Farsh Bazar police station in July 2014, on a complaint by Hedgewar Hospital's head of the department, officials said.

The case was transferred to the ACB in November 2022, they said.

The ACB found in its probe that prima facie a case was made out under Section 13 (1) (d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, which deals with a public servant obtaining pecuniary advantage or valuable thing by illegal means by abusing his/her position, documents showed.

The medicine supplier had submitted bank cheques worth Rs 1.41 crore to settle the excess payment made to it.

An amount of Rs 91 lakh was cleared but another cheque for Rs 50 lakh was dishonoured by the bank, following which the FIR was registered by the police, the officials added.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)