Srinagar: The Enforcement Directorate has provisionally attached properties worth over ₹ 36.57 crore in connection with an alleged health insurance fraud case in Jammu and Kashmir.
The then J&K Governor Satya Pal Malik had in October 2018 annulled the group medical insurance policy with Anil Ambani’s Reliance General Insurance Company Limited (RGICL) brokered through Messers Trinity Reinsurance Brokers Private Limited (TRBL) for the State government employees and pensioners and accredited journalists after finding it “full of frauds”.
The ED said on Thursday that case is linked to awarding of tender of the Mediclaim insurance policies to these companies by J&K Finance Department “fraudulently” and that it had initiated investigation into it on the basis of FIRs registered by the CBI and J&K Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) at Srinagar for commission of offences under various sections of PC (Pari-Materia to sections 120-B & 420 of IPC) and JKPC (Pari-Materia to sections 13(1) (d) read with 13(2) of PC Act).
The FIRs were registered based on a complaint filed by the J&K government against the RGICL, TRBL and unknown public servants and private persons.
The ED said that the investigation revealed that J&K Finance Department deliberately awarded the tender for engagement of intermediary for designing, floating the tender for and implementation of the health scheme for government employees and pensioners of J&K by dubious or questionable selection and shortlisting process to TRBL without holding the essential eligibility criteria.
“Moreover, the tender for engagement of IRDAl registered insurance company was awarded through the TRBL to the said insurance company which was already blacklisted by government of Chhattisgarh by modification and deletion of essential eligibility criteria even though the company had less presence in J&K and bare minimum experience, as pre requirement of the tender, during the stipulated period," the ED said. It added that ₹ 63.53 crores were fraudulently disbursed to these companies and out of this amount medical claims of ₹ 17 crores had been disbursed by the RGIPL.
The J&K government had in 2022 recommended that the CBI may probe the allegation of Mr. Malik that he was offered ₹ 300 crore in return for clearing the files of the country’s two big industrial houses.
Malik who served as the Governor of J&K between August 23, 2018 and October 30, 2019 before being shifted to Goa had while speaking at an event at Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan on October 17, 2021 said, “After going to Kashmir, two files came to me (for clearance), one belonging to Ambani and another to an RSS-affiliated man who was a minister in the previous Mehbooba Mufti-led (PDP-BJP coalition) government and claimed to be very close to the Prime Minister.” He had claimed, “I was informed by secretaries in both the departments that there is a scandal involved and I accordingly cancelled both the deals. The secretaries told me that 'you will get ₹ 150 crore each for clearing the files' but I told them that I have come with five kurta-pyjamas and will leave with those only.”
Though Malik had not elaborated, one of these files was believed to be related to the group medical insurance policy with the RGICL. The Congress had criticised the rolling out of the scheme earlier in September that year and termed it as yet another testimony of ‘Modi-Reliance nexus’. Around the same time, Mr. Malik had also announced cancellation of a contract for a hydro-power dam over a river but without naming the project. He had said that a deal of ₹ 100 crore was finalized by the officers and cost of the project was raised by 35 per cent to secure benefits adding that one of these officers had been removed. End it
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Yusuf Jameel
Az-Zahra, 48-Chinar Avenue
Naseem Bagh, Habak, Hazratbal,
Srinagar-190 006, Kashmir (India)
Phone: ++91 194 241 5624 & 241 4044
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Twitter: @jameelyusuf
