Indore civil surgeon suspended over fake birth certificates racket

Indore civil surgeon Dr Ratan Khandelwal was suspended on Thursday by divisional commissioner Sanjay Dubey after reports surfaced that a fake birth certificate racket operated at the Indore district hospital.

Indore civil surgeon Dr Ratan Khandelwal was suspended on Thursday by divisional commissioner Sanjay Dubey after reports surfaced that a fake birth certificate racket operated at the Indore district hospital.

Nodal health officer Dr Dilip Acharya was appointed as the new civil surgeon. Dr Acharya will be taken over the office for the second time. Earlier, he had stepped down from the post, saying he was overburdened with work.

It is for the third time in the last one year that a civil surgeon has been changed. The post continues to juggle among senior paediatrician Dr Hemant Dwivedi, Dr Dilip Acharya and Dr Ratan Khandelwal. Departmental politics and chaos at the district hospital are said to be the prime reasons for this game of musical chairs.

Additional collector Dilip Kumar had led a panel that probed the allegations after a complaint was lodged with district collector P Narahari about the racket. The panel had recommended a high-level inquiry into the matter.

Most of these birth certificates were issued without keeping any record at all with the hospital and money was exchanged blatantly in all these matters.

In some of the cases, birth certificates were issued of a year when the hospital was not even established. The district hospital was established on January 14, 1988.

“Financial irregularities and fake birth certificates were brought to the notice of the administration. It was found during an inquiry that majority of certificates were issued for before 2007, which proved them to be fake as the district hospital did not had a right to do this earlier,” Dubey said.

The department decided to take a strong step against the civil surgeon as the offence was serious, he added.