ACB Gurugram unit nabs Palwal CMO accepting ₹1 lakh bribe from hospital owner

ACB officials said the accused, Dr Jai Bhagwan Jatan, was taking bribe money from the complainant at his official residence in Palwal late Thursday night.

The Anti-Corruption Bureau of Gurugram arrested Palwal chief medical officer red handed when he was allegedly accepting ₹1 lakh bribe from a private hospital owner, officials said on Friday.

Representational. (Shutterstock)

ACB officials said the accused, Dr Jai Bhagwan Jatan, was taking bribe money from the complainant at his official residence in Palwal late Thursday night when he was caught during the raids. Officials said Jatan had hardly two years left for superannuation.

Officials later searched the residence and found ₹3 lakh cash from one of the cupboards, which was also part of the bribe that Jatan allegedly took from the complainant.

A senior ACB official said the complainant had set up a private hospital in Palwal in partnership with three friends around 3-4 months back.

“However, Jatan threatened the complainant to get the hospital shut multiple times citing several shortcomings in the working and infrastructure for patients,” he said.

“After making the complainant run pillar to post multiple times, the CMO finally demanded ₹15 lakh bribe for allowing him to smoothly run the hospital,” he said.

The official said that the complainant finally handed ₹6 lakh to Jatan at his official residence as a part-payment for the entire bribe amount almost 20 days back of which ₹3 lakh was recovered during search on Thursday night.

“On Wednesday, the complainant had further paid Jatan ₹1 lakh cash again and expressed his inability to pay the rest of the bribe money but the CMO put pressure on him to clear the pending amount of ₹8 lakh immediately following which he approached ACB,” he said.

Officials said that an FIR was registered against Jatan under Prevention of Corruption Act and section 308 (2) (extortion) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at ACB police station in Faridabad and raiding team was formed which finally caught him red-handed on Thursday night while accepting ₹1 lakh. Officials said that Jatan will be produced before a court on Friday and taken on police-remand for quizzing.