Suspended deputy dean of Sion Hosp booked in 6th medical admission scam

Sion police filed a case against Dr. Rakesh Verma for cheating a doctor of ₹70 lakh for a fake MBBS admission, marking his sixth cheating allegation.

MUMBAI: The Sion police on Friday registered a case against Dr Rakesh Verma, the suspended deputy dean of the Sion Hospital, for allegedly cheating a doctor based in Dharavi to the tune of ₹70 lakhs by promising his daughter an MBBS admission under the management quota. The police said that this is the sixth cheating case registered against the suspended deputy dean.

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The complainant in the case is Dr Ramachandra Shukla. Shukla and his wife, Dr Sunita, run a clinic in Dharavi. “Their daughter had obtained 60% in HSC. They wanted an MBBS admission for their daughter in 2020. They tried several colleges like Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College and General Hospital, DY Patil Hospital, JJ Hospital, Vedanta College for admission under the management quota, but were unsuccessful,” said a police officer.

In September 2020, Dr Shukla met with Dr Rakesh Verma, the then deputy dean of the college. He allegedly promised admission for Shukla’s doctor in Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College and General Hospital in the management quota. Verma then asked the doctor to meet his accomplice, Dr Akhilesh Pal. Dr Pal called Dr Shukla and demanded ₹1 crore for the admission, and directed him to meet his associate, Luv Gupta, in Belapur. After negotiations, Dr Shukla paid Gupta ₹70 lakh in three cheques, the officer said.

A few days later, Dr Shukla’s daughter received emails confirming her admission to the college. According to the complaint, Gupta allegedly even handed her a provisional allotment letter with the dean’s signature. She also received emails from the hospital’s official email ID asking her to join online classes.

“For four months in 2021, she attended the online lectures but was not satisfied with the teaching quality. She could only hear the audio as the video was always turned off, so she never saw her teacher,” the police officer said. When Dr Shukla complained to Dr Mohan Joshi, the dean, about the quality of online classes, he was told that the college never admitted his daughter. He contacted one of the accused and asked when his cheques were deposited, but received no answers.

Dr Shukla recently approached the Sion police, who registered the case against Dr Verma, Dr Pal, Luv Gupta, and another accomplice, Kush Gupta. The four were booked under Sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code,” said the officer.

Dr Verma was suspended sometime in 2023 after he was arrested in another case of a medical admission scam.