Seven of the government officials including three doctors serving in the Insurance Medical Services (IMS), are arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau, for an alleged multi-crore scam. The ACB is investigating alleged financial irregularities in the supply of medicines to dispensaries and Employees State Insurance (ESI) hospitals in the state.

On Friday, the director of IMS in Warangal, Dr Ch Devika Rani, joint director, Dr Padma, assistant director (store) K. Vasantha Indira, Shamshabad ESI dispensary pharmacist grade-II M. Radhika, senior assistant V. Harshavardhan, Omni Medi managing director K. Srihari Babu, and company representative Ch Siva Nagaraju were taken into custody for financial irregularities in buying medicines through special drug dispensing units instead of by rate contracts, in 2017-18.

ACB officers detained key documents related to the indents and other transactions from the residences of these seven persons. An ACB official said that they have to thoroughly inspect the detained documents to discover the total loss caused to the government exchequer.

On Wednesday,the ACB has named 17 government officials and four private persons and a journalist who was working for a vernacular news channel in the case which was registered under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Of the 17 officials, the seven named above are arrested and produced before the special court for ACB cases after which they were kept to judicial custody. The investigation exposed that the director, Ch Devika Rani, in collusion with the other officials had prepared fake indents and falsified records in violation of the rules for purchasing medicines and surgical kits and caused a loss of Rs 11.69 crore to the exchequer.

The ACB said it had examined 18 witnesses before making the arrests. According to its report, the ACB said that no stock copies were received at the Patancheru and Borabanda dispensaries from the office of joint director (Medical), Hyderabad.

The ACB also said that according to records at the joint directors office, these medicines were supplied to Patancheru and Borabanda dispensaries and was evident from the indent forms dated May 26 to 28, 2018, that they were fabricated by taking colour photo copies of an earlier indent and altering the date, which amounted to forgery.