Cuttack, Sept 18: Yesterday a Special Court here denied to grant the bail petitions of the doctor couple, Surendranath Senapati and his wife Diptirani Samanta.
The couple were taken into custody on Friday on charges of corruption, forgery for cheating, deceit and criminal conspiracy. The Vigilance judge, RS Hota also refused to grant bail to the local pharmaceutical company proprietor, Sudhansu Das, who too was arrested along duo. All the three were arrested under several sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and sections 120B, 468 and 471 of the IPC.
All the three were sent to the Choudwar Circle jail on Friday. It’s stated that Senapati was posted as the head of the radiation oncology at Acharya Harihar Regional Cancer Centre here and his wife was working as an assistant professor of medical oncology at the same centre.
Investigating a case of disproportionate assets (DA) against the couple, the vigilance officers found out that the doctors, between May 2013 and December 2015, had prescribed “costly and less known” anti-cancer medicines, manufactured by Das’ firm, to patients, who came under the Odisha State Treatment Fund (OSTF) and the Biju Krushak Kalyan Yojna (BKKY) schemes.
While drugs of the same composition of reputed companies were available in the market for a more of a less cost, the couple asked the patients to purchase the costly medicines, resulting in early exhaustion of the patients’ funds under the welfare schemes.
