Class I officer, ex-dean in ACB net for graft

Ahmedabad: The Anti-Corruption Bureau's (ACB) Ahmedabad unit late on Tuesday night nabbed a retired dean of a govt dental college for accepting Rs 15 lakh bribe from a deputy director of health and medical services in Bhavnagar to allegedly settle a complaint against him.
Girish Parmar, who retired as dean of the dental college on the Asarwa Civil Hospital campus, was allegedly working in collusion with Dinesh Parmar, additional secretary (inquiry), Class 1, health and family welfare department. Both share family relations and have been named accused in the case, police said. Girish has been sent on police remand till Friday, April 11.
The deputy director, who was the one to tip off the ACB, had been accused of extortion from subordinates in a public hospital and was facing an inquiry. Girish, acting as an intermediary, had allegedly approached the deputy director allegedly saying that Dinesh could ensure a positive outcome of the inquiry.
Girish was caught red-handed at his home in Arham Society, Shahibaug area, receiving Rs 15 lakh from the complaintant. This amount was the first first installment of a Rs 30 lakh the two accused had demanded.
"The complainant in this case earlier served as deputy director (health and medical services) in Bhavnagar. He took disciplinary action against certain staff members of the health department for bogus medical treatments. Following this, a complaint of extortion was filed against the complainant with the department commissioner. As a result, both the complainant and his doctor colleague were relieved of duty, and a preliminary departmental inquiry initiated against them. The inquiry officer completed this departmental investigation in Oct 2024 and submitted the report in Jan 2025," said an official ACB statement.
Meanwhile, Girish contacted the complainant and asked him to arrange a meeting with Dinesh to influence the outcome of the inquiry in favour of the complainant and his colleague. The complainant and the doctor met both the accused in Gandhinagar. The accused demanded Rs 30 lakh from the complainant and his colleague as bribe, with Rs 15 lakh to be paid in advance, and the remaining after the case's resolution.
After Girish repeatedly made calls for the money, the complainant approached the ACB along with other doctors, and filed a formal complaint. An ACB team laid a trap. As Girish called the complainant home with the bribe money, engaged in a conversation consistent with his previous demand and accepted the bribe money, the ACB team caught him red-handed, the statement said.
Sources in the police force and the secretariat said that Dinesh was close to a serving IAS officer, and had been given a year's extension in April last year. Dinesh had various departments like medical and health, GMERS (Gujarat Medical and Emergency Response Services), Vigilance, Ayush, and nursing with him and was the final authority in deciding complaints against various heads in medical colleges and doctors working with public hospitals.
Sources said that Dinesh, along with Girish, also filed various anonymous applications against various medical officers from whom they extorted money. Girish retired from the dental college last year, and he faced various complaints against him during his tenure, said ACB officers