HC bitter pill for Telangana govt on Niloufer diet food supply scam

HYDERABAD: The Telangana high court on Thursday slammed the government for not taking action on a food supply contractor of state-run Niloufer children’s hospital and sought a detailed report by August 17 on the scam perpetrated in the name of supplying diet food to children and mothers in the hospital.
Wondering if authorities were also hand in glove with contractor Koduri Suresh Babu despite inquiries clearly establishing his role in swindling government funds, a bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B Vijaysen Reddy expressed doubts about possible complicity of the hospital superintendent in the scam. The judges were hearing a petition of P Bhagavanth Rao of Osmangunj, who alleged that the contractor continued to have a free run despite the inquiry report confirming embezzlement of Rs 3.5 crore.
The judges said the contractor was swindling money from the exchequer. “Half the loot is going to someone else. Everybody is dancing to the tunes of Suresh Babu and turning a blind eye towards misuse of lakhs of rupees of public money,” the bench said.
When the petitioner’s counsel brought to the notice of the judges that the government had given the diet supply contract at Gandhi and Chest hospitals to Suresh Babu, the judges said: “There are allegations against Suresh Babu that regardless of supply of high protein food to patients in Niloufer hospital, he was minting crores of rupees from the state. There are also allegations of bogus bills which meant that he was minting money in the name of non-existent patients.”
The petitioner alleged that money meant for infants was being misused. “It has been almost one year since there was a public outcry over rampant corruption in the supply of food. The government ordered a probe 10 months ago and the inquiry report confirmed corruption of Rs 3.5 crore. Even then the contractor has not been touched,” he said.
At this point, state counsel P Radhive Reddy furnished a report of the superintendent of Niloufer hospital to the judges who got furious after going through the report. In his report, the superintendent said: “Probably after the court took up the issue, the government replaced the contractor with a new contractor, Yadav Reddy. There were two inquiries conducted on Suresh Babu and findings of these reports were sent to the government. We are waiting for the government to act.”
To this, the judges said: “He (superintendent) was trying to wash his hands of the issue. He did not tell us anything as to what were the findings in the inquiry reports. Even the government is not acting against that old contractor (Suresh).”
“Inquiry has become a ceremony here. They (officials) perform it one after the other. Where is the need for ordering a second inquiry when the government was already in possession of a first inquiry report,” the judges said. Taking a serious view, they directed the government to inform the court by August 17 the action it took on the two inquiry reports and furnish copies of the reports.
Contractor Suresh’s counsel, however, told the bench that a misinformation campaign was being launched against his client by a section of people. “This legal battle has been initiated at the behest of a contractor who competed with him for the Gandhi Hospital food diet supply contract and lost the tender.” The judges, however, asked him to file a counter.