OSTF Scam: Orissa HC Grants Conditional Bail To Dr Rabindra Jena

Cuttack: The Orissa High Court on Friday granted conditional bail to Dr Rabindra Kumar Jena, Head of the Department of Clinical Hematology of SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.

Jena was released on bail after executing PR Bond of Rs 50,000 with two solvent sureties each with a condition that he would not leave the state without the prior permission of the court.

Jena was arrested by the State Vigilance on December 21 last year on charges of huge misappropriation of Odisha State Treatment Fund (OSTF).

He was later produced before a Vigilance court which sent him to judicial custody till January 3 after rejecting his bail plea.

The State Vigilance had arrested Dr Sudha Sethy, Assistant Professor of the Clinical Hematology Department, on December 13 after raiding her official and private residence as well as the official and private residence of Dr Jena.

Both Jena and Sethy are accused of criminal conspiracy, misusing official position, showing undue favour to different pharmaceutical companies, cheating and misappropriation of government funds.

The Vigilance had launched a probe on the basis of allegations against these two senior doctors for allegedly showing favour to different pharmaceutical firms by prescribing its high cost medicines to poor patients getting financial assistance for their treatment under OSTF launched by the state government in December 2011.

During the probe, it was found that Jena and Sethy were sending the application forms of the poor beneficiaries with estimate for expenditure mentioning the generic/molecular name of the medicines instead of prescribing specific medicines, which were available in the central store of the SCB Hospital.

It was further revealed that the accused were prescribing ‘Atgam’ injection, a Pfizer product, to the poor patients, which costs almost double the cost of ‘Thymogam’ that is available in SCB store and market, thereby causing huge loss to the government exchequer and depriving the poor patients from availing the benefits under the OSTF scheme.

The Vigilance later registered a criminal case under section 13(2) r/w 13(1) (c) (d) of Prevention of Corruption Act 1988/409/420/34/120-B IPC against Dr Jena and Dr Sudha, Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies.