CID Investigating Scam Targetting CM’s Medical Relief Fund

Bengaluru: The CID sleuths of Karnataka Police have unearthed a scam where medical bills were inflated and forged to claim benefit from the Chief Minister’s medical relief fund. So far about 100 forged bills were found that misappropriated funds worth Rs 3 crores.

The scam included bills for open heart surgeries for perfectly normal people and in one instance a patient’s bill for a dog bite was forged and inflated into a cancer bill.

The police reveal that bills from about 30 reputed hospitals in the city were forged so far, and believe the amount misappropriated may turn out to be more as the investigation proceeds. They suspect the involvement of staff in the chief minister’s office and are intent on questioning them in a day or two.

The scam was unearthed when an employee at the chief minister’s office spotted an anomaly in the bills and lodged a complaint at the Vidhana Soudha police station.

The investigation was then transferred to the CID, and so far 54 cases have been registered in connection with the matter across the state.

Police have arrested four men in regards to the scam so far. They have been identified as Amogappa Tippanna Moratagi, C M Nagaraj Shetty , M K Kiran Kariyappa, and Shankar Siddashetty.

Amogappa is said to have submitted 75 bills in the names of different people with forged addresses. The people who signed the hospital records were found to have done this unwittingly as Amogappa got them to sign them on the pretext of getting new Aadhar cards issued from the government.

The CID revealed that money from the chief minister’s relief fund can be sanctioned to the beneficiaries only when a minister or MLA recommends the patient. Their investigation into the case so far has found that a certain minister had signed more than 25 bills.