Fake pharmacy registration racket busted, Delhi Pharmacy Council former employee, 46 others arrested
arrested
New Delhi: In a major crackdown, the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) has busted a fake pharmacy registration racket and arrested a former employee of the Delhi Pharmacy Council (DPC) and 46 others, an official said on Wednesday.
The accused allegedly facilitated fraudulent registration of unqualified individuals as pharmacists using forged documents, according to an ACB statement.
According to PTI report, Joint Commissioner of Police (ACB) Madhur Verma said in a statement, “The scam was orchestrated by Kuldeep Singh, former registrar at DPC, in collaboration with a private firm which was hired to conduct online registrations of the pharmacists. However, the company was hired without any tendering process and in violation of the laid down procedures.”
“The investigation revealed that bribes were taken through a middleman named Sanjay, who coordinated between DPC officials and various diploma colleges,” Verma said.
The racket enabled applicants to upload fake certificates which were then falsely verified by complicit employees of pharmacy institutes, read the statement.
Some applicants even submitted different sets of documents for multiple registrations, all of which were approved without scrutiny. False verification emails were sent from fabricated addresses to validate counterfeit credentials, it read.
Authorities discovered that Kuldeep Singh continued approving registrations through his personal email even after leaving office on August 16, 2023. Before his final suspension on September 25, 2023, he had illegally approved 232 additional applications, the statement read.
In total, Singh had approved 4,928 pharmacist registrations during his tenure from March 17, 2020, to September 25, 2023.
The ACB has arrested 47 people, including six touts, a printing shop owner, three employees of pharmacy colleges and 35 people operating as illegal pharmacists or chemists, read the statement.
Neeraj, a printing shop owner from Delhi’s Shahbad, was identified as the supplier of fake certificates. A forensic analysis of his computer revealed the creation of multiple forged documents.
“ACB have seized forged training certificates, diplomas and the computer systems used for document fabrication. Investigators suspect that a large number of chemists in Delhi have been operating illegally without proper qualifications, with some not even having completed high school,” the officer said in the statement.
He added that a case has been registered and further investigation is underway.
