E-Paper
'Apollo tampered with records'
Apollo changed records to cover up delay in informing cops, writes N Alvi.
In its status report on the role of the doctors and the management of Apollo hospital in the Rahul Mahajan drug case, Delhi Police have accused the hospital of deliberately botching up things in order to protect the accused. The police are also examining the staff from Dr Lal Path Lab, which received and processed for testing samples of Mahajan's blood for toxicity tests from Apollo.
The status report, which was submitted to a city court, alleges that the management of the Apollo hospital, in an attempt to cover up the delay in informing the police, changed and tampered with the records. "The MLC prepared by one Dr Mukul Pandey shows that the police were informed at 4:00 am. Whereas the police as well as other hospital records clearly show that the information was given at 5:00 am, almost two hours after the incident. The records also reveal that Harish Sharma, an accomplice of the accused, informed Raji Chandru, the DGM of Apollo hospital, about the condition of both Mahajan and Maitra at 2.39 am," the report states.
The report also says that the admission register originally showed 3.55 and 3.57 am as the time of admission for Bibek Maitra and Rahul Mahajan respectively. Apparently, these entries were later overwritten as 3.15 and 2.55 am on the orders of the CMO, casualty. However, knotting up things even further, the MLC register shows Maitra as brought dead at 4 am. All these documents, which show signs of overwriting, tampering and interposition, have been sent for examination along with the specimen handwriting of the accused persons.
Also, the security supervisor of the hospital who called up the police control room at '100', instead of immediately informing the police about the incident, asked them in which jurisdiction Safdarjung road falls. Only after securing that information did they call the Tughlaq Road Police station to report about the matter. "This is very unusual. Had they informed the PCR about the incident, the van could have quickly reached the spot," says the report. The status report, prepared after examining over 66 persons, including a team of senior consultants and doctors at the hospital, was filed in the court of the additional chief metropolitan magistrate, Kamini Lau, on Friday.
The report also calls extremely unusual the press release issued on June 3 by the Director of Medical Services, Apollo, which stated the toxic screen was negative. "The hospital appeared to be overzealous in giving a clean chit to Mahajan, while facts indicated otherwise," the report says. The report accuses the hospital of causing various other discrepancies in the case sheet and other medical papers examined so far, indicating an attempt to hide the true picture of the situation as it actually was.
