New Delhi: Delhi health minister Saurabh Bharadwaj slammed the Delhi Health Secretary for filling false affidavit in Delhi High Court in an ongoing PIL related to health services under the Delhi government. The Health Minister said that the health secretary has “quietly filed a false affidavit” in the Delhi high court about health services under the state government to hide the shortage of doctors, specialists, paramedics and medicines in state-run hospitals from the court.
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The minister added that in the affidavit it has been claimed in the affidavit that regular meetings were undertaken by the special secretary concerned to ensure availability of drugs and consumables in hospitals, tender for procurement of medicines through CPA was already floated and the rate contract for most of the medicines “will be completed by June 15, 2024”.
Terming the current status provided in the affidavit to be completely misleading the minister said in a letter to the law minister Kailash Gahlot “For the last few months there is acute shortage of medicines in hospitals, dispensaries, and mohalla clinics. And this is very much in the knowledge of secretary health who has approved the affidavit on file.” The minister said that the affidavit was submitted without informing him. “This affidavit has not been approved by me, rather it has been approved by the health secretary, because all the things written in this affidavit are lies, whereas the truth is exactly the opposite. For a long time, I have been writing to the chief secretary and the health secretary, telling them that there is a huge shortage of medicines in Delhi government hospitals and Mohalla clinics,” Bharadwaj said.
Bharadwaj wrote to the law minister of the Delhi government seeking strict action against health secretary and standing counsel of the services department. “Without my verification, without my knowledge a wrong and false affidavit was secretly given in the high court …The false affidavit was presented before the court by the lawyer of the ‘services’ department which comes under the LG, bypassing the lawyer of the Delhi government… strict action should be taken against the health secretary and the standing counsel of the ‘services’ department,” Bharadwaj said.
“Bharadwaj is saying that officials are lying and there is no file pending with me is part of his usual habit to project that everyone other than him is a liar. During Saurabh Bharadwaj’s tenure as health minister, Delhiites have seen scams in Mohalla Clinic related to pathological tests and X rays among others apart from the distribution of spurious medicine from government hospital counters.”
– Virendra Sachdeva, Delhi BJP president