Sandip Ghosh was under corruption cloud even before appointment as RG Kar principal
Times of India | 12 September 2024
Former RG Kar Medical College and Hospital's principal Sandip Ghosh (ANI) KOLKATA: Corruption complaints by whistleblowers against RG Kar former principal Sandip Ghosh were probed by West Bengal's health department back in 2020 but the inquiry reports remained "inconclusive".
Complaints were also made to state vigilance department against Ghosh. But, after an inquiry, the probes were discontinued, the charges dropped, and Ghosh was promoted to principal of RG Kar Medical College & Hospital.
The charges against him then included unsanctioned foreign trips, ill-treatment of colleagues and peers, questionable hospital purchases, amassing personal property, and engagement in private practice despite a clear bar on senior health department officials doing so. Ghosh had rebutted every charge then. However, some of these charges - questionable hospital purchases and amassing personal property - are now being probed by CBI and ED.
According to documents accessed by TOI, the first complaint against Ghosh was made in Feb 2020; it alleged he made an unsanctioned trip to Dubai. It was alleged that hospital suppliers paid for his travel. Ghosh had refuted the charge, saying his passport bore no stamp indicating travel to Dubai and the allegations against him were "false, malicious, fictitious and humiliating". But the charges also included his alleged links with Ma Tara Enterprise and Biplab Singha (now arrested by CBI) for fudging govt orders in hospital procurement to make money. Ghosh, then Calcutta National Medical College Hospital vice-principal and superintendent, was also accused of private practice despite high-ranking officials being legally barred from doing so.
After the complaints were received, the state asked the then CNMC principal to probe the charges. In his report the principal made it clear that he worked with Ghosh and hence "it is difficult for me to give an unbiased opinion". In the inquiry report, the principal said about hospital purchases: "It is not possible to make comment without detailed probe by the competent authority."
On Ghosh's private practice, the report said Ghosh did not avail of a non-practising allowance but was permitted to do so by the govt in 2006.