3 doctors among 6 get 2-yr jail for driving licence fraud

Ludhiana: A local court has sentenced six persons, including a private firm official and three doctors, to 2-year rigorous imprisonment in a corruption case related to issuance of driving licence in the district transport office (DTO).
The special court Dr Ajit Atri also imposed a fine of Rs 1,000 each on three convicts — Des Raj of Ferozepur road, Rajiv Gupta of Joshi Nagar in Haibowal and Vinod Kumar Sehgal (official of Smart Chip company, DTO Office, Ludhiana) — and Rs 4,000 on three doctors — Dr Prithpal Singh Gulati of a hospital in Field Gunj, Dr Santokh Singh of BRS Nagar, Dr Ashok Kumar Aggarwal of Civil Lines.

Two other accused Baljinder Singh and Sunil Sood have passed away during the hearing.
On September 17, 2014, the Vigilance Bureau (Ludhiana) had booked eight persons under Sections 420 (cheating), 467 (Forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (Using as genuine a forged [document or electronic record]), 120 B (criminal conspiracy) IPC and section of Prevention of Corruption Act.
As per the prosecution, a vigilance inquiry was conducted against the district transport office Ludhiana, which had given the contract for preparation of licences to one private firm ‘Smart Chip Company’. During the inquiry, it was found that fresh and renewed driving licences were being issued by officials of DTO in connivance with agents of company and some doctors.
Vinod Kumar Sehgal was an employee of the company. He had further employed private agents Des Raj, Rajiv Gupta and Sunil Sood, who used to collect money more than the government fee from various aspirants for issuance of licence. These agents used to hand over files to Vinod Sehgal after collecting the amount. They all used to obtain signatures of applicants on blank documents. All formalities, including certificate of medical fitness, were completed by agents. These medical certificates were being obtained from various doctors on their own.
They got help from Baljinder Singh, who worked as a steno in the DTO. Baljinder was aware of the fact that Vinod Kumar and his agents were getting the licence issued after charging hefty amounts. During investigation of the case, Dr Pirthipal Singh Gulati, Dr Ashok Kumar Aggarwal and Dr Santokh Singh were nominated as persons from whom Vinod and his agent used to get medical formalities completed.
Des Raj, Rajiv Gupta and Sunil Sood were later arrested. On the disclosure statement of Rajiv Gupta, some files regarding driving licences and registration certificates were recovered from his office, which were taken into police possession. Dr Gulati, Dr Aggarwal and Dr Santokh were also arrested and interrogated.
Later, police presented a chargesheeet against the accused in the court.
“The recovery of 64 forms in bunch from Des Raj which are incomplete and have the attestation of three doctors leave no doubt that all the accused were working in close association/connivance with each other. During the cross-examination also, there was nothing on the file which could separate out the accused. This establishes the criminal conspiracy among all the accused,” the court said.