CM sued over spurious blood test kits
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20061103/main9.htm#2
Tribune News Service

Kolkata, November 2
West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, has been
accused of shielding "guilty" officials and the employees of the
Health Department involved in the supply of spurious blood test kits
to blood banks, which caused hepatitis and HIV infection among
hundreds of people in the state.

A PIL was filed in the Calcutta High Court against the state
government, making the Chief Minister, the Health Minister, Dr
Suryakanto Mishra, and the Health Secretary as respondents. The case
will come up for hearing next week.

Advocate Arunava Ghosh, a former Trinamool Congress MLA, appearing
on behalf of the petitioner, Mr Tapas Sengupta, the father of a
thalassaemia patient demanded that the guilty persons should get
exemplary punishment for the crime they had committed. He wondered
how the Chief Minister could give a clean chit to the Health
Department prior to any investigation.

Mr Sengupta's son was recently infected with HIV following a blood
transfusion after it was tested by a spurious test kit. He has held
the Chief Minister and the Health Minister responsible for it. He
said after the exposure of the Rs 2.5 crore blood test kit scam, the
Chief Minister has no moral right to be in the chair.

In the petition filed in the high court, Mr Ghosh pleaded that those
people who had received blood which was examined with spurious test
kits during the past one-and-a-half-year should be prevented from
donating any blood to stop the spread of hepatitis and HIV
infection.

He said the court should appoint an independent expert team to probe
the entire procedure of supplying of test kits to government
hospitals and blood banks by a sole supplier, Monozyme India, a
Secundrabad-based medicine company for the last 16 months. He
alleged that by asking the CBI to probe the matter, the Chief
Minister was diluting the state government's involvement in the
scam.

Incidentally, the Sarda brothers, who own the company have already
been put under detention and have been refused bail. The police was
also on the lookout for five persons including the middleman
involved in the racket.

But so far, neither the senior IAS official nor the five other
employees who were directly connected in ordering the test kits
worth over Rs 2.5 crore to Monozyme India, have been arrested or
interrogated.

Today, several demonstrations and meetings were organised in
Coochbehar, Jalpaiguri, West Dinajpur, Malda, Burdwan, Nadia,
Howrah, 24-pargans and Kolkata districts.