HC cancels work tender to private security agency in Bengal govt hospitals

Kolkata: A single-judge vacation bench of the Calcutta High Court, on Tuesday, cancelled the work tenders awarded to private security agencies at state-run hospitals in two districts of West Bengal on the grounds that those tenders were awarded flouting all norms.

The single judge vacation bench of Justice Shampa Dutta (Paul) also directed the chief medical officers of health (CMOHs) of East Midnapore and West Midnapore districts to immediately ensure that orders for awarding contracts to ineligible private security agencies are cancelled immediately.

The single judge division bench has also directed the CMOHs of the two districts to file an affidavit to the court detailing the reasons and basis of the awarding contracts to a particular private security agency, which had been prima facie found to be ineligible for bagging the contract.

The division bench also observed that the contract was awarded after cancelling the previous one with another private security agency which was genuinely fit to get that contract.

Such observations of the Calcutta High Court have gained significance amid the ongoing probe by two central agencies, namely the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED), in the multi-crore financial irregularities case in the state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata.

In this case, too one of the major charges is manipulation in the tendering process to award contracts to ineligible private contractors against hefty commissions. The main accused in the case is the former and controversial principal of R.G. Kar, Sandip Ghosh.

Besides Ghosh, CBI has also arrested two private contractors, who had been supplying medical equipment to R.G Kar and have been accused as the beneficiaries in the financial irregularities case.

The other charges in the case include getting infrastructure-related work at R.G. Kar done by such private outsourced agencies bypassing the state public works department against hefty commissions, smuggling of bio-medical wastes of the hospitals and also selling organs of unidentified bodies coming to the hospital morgue.