Bharadwaj slams health secy for submitting ‘false affidavit’ to HC

The affidavit was filed on July 31 in connection with an ongoing PIL related to health services under the Delhi government

New Delhi

The minister said that the affidavit was submitted without informing him. (Representative photo)

Delhi health minister Saurabh Bharadwaj on Tuesday said the health secretary has “quietly filed a false affidavit” in the Delhi high court about health services under the state government to hide the shortage of doctors, specialists, paramedics and medicines in state-run hospitals from the court.

The affidavit was filed on July 31 in connection with an ongoing PIL related to health services under the Delhi government.

The minister said it has been claimed in the affidavit that regular meetings were undertaken by the special secretary concerned to ensure availability of drugs and consumables in hospitals, tender for procurement of medicines through CPA was already floated and the rate contract for most of the medicines “will be completed by June 15, 2024”.

The minister said the current status provided in the affidavit is not true and completely misleading. “For the last few months there is acute shortage of medicines in hospitals, dispensaries, and mohalla clinics. And this is very much in the knowledge of secretary health who has approved the affidavit on file,” the minister said in a letter to the law minister Kailash Gahlot.

The minister said that the affidavit was submitted without informing him. “This affidavit has not been approved by me, rather it has been approved by the health secretary, because all the things written in this affidavit are lies, whereas the truth is exactly the opposite. For a long time, I have been writing to the chief secretary and the health secretary, telling them that there is a huge shortage of medicines in Delhi government hospitals and Mohalla clinics,” Bharadwaj said.

Bharadwaj on Tuesday wrote to the law minister of the Delhi government seeking strict action against health secretary and standing counsel of the services department. “Without my verification, without my knowledge a wrong and false affidavit was secretly given in the high court …The false affidavit was presented before the court by the lawyer of the ‘services’ department which comes under the LG, bypassing the lawyer of the Delhi government... strict action should be taken against the health secretary and the standing counsel of the ‘services’ department,” Bharadwaj said.

In response, a health department official said: The matter is before the high court and we cannot comment on this. The minister can make a representation before the court.”

LG office officials said the minister’s statement was misleading. “Yet another misleading and false statement made by the press conference minister, this time to not only mislead the people of Delhi but the judiciary as well. This secretariat will react substantively to statements made by health minister where substantive points are raised, not to inanities of the press conference minister,” the LG office said.

Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said: “Bharadwaj is saying that officials are lying and there is no file pending with me is part of his usual habit to project that everyone other than him is a liar. During Saurabh Bharadwaj’s tenure as health minister, Delhiites have seen scams in Mohalla Clinic related to pathological tests and X rays among others apart from the distribution of spurious medicine from government hospital counters.”