New Delhi: The Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) has dismantled a sprawling fake pharmacy registration racket, arresting 47 individuals, including a former Delhi Pharmacy Council (DPC) official accused of orchestrating the scam.
The operation exposed a network of corruption that allowed unqualified individuals to fraudulently register as pharmacists, posing a serious risk to public health.
Investigators revealed that Kuldeep Singh, former registrar of the Delhi Pharmacy Council, was the mastermind behind the fraud. Working in collusion with a private firm, he facilitated fraudulent pharmacist registrations without any official tendering process.
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The company, tasked with managing online registrations, allowed applicants to submit forged documents, which were then falsely verified by compromised employees of pharmacy institutes.
Bribes were funneled through a middleman named Sanjay, who acted as a bridge between corrupt DPC officials and several diploma colleges, ensuring approvals for fake credentials. Shockingly, some applicants submitted multiple sets of fraudulent documents and were granted multiple pharmacist registrations without any scrutiny.
The investigation uncovered a massive falsification scheme, where verification emails were sent from fake addresses, and registrations were approved without proper authentication.
Even after leaving office on August 16, 2023, Kuldeep Singh continued illegally approving registrations from his personal email, granting an additional 232 fake licenses before his final suspension on September 25, 2023.
Between March 17, 2020, and September 25, 2023, Singh had illicitly approved 4,928 pharmacist registrations, allowing thousands of unqualified individuals to pose as certified professionals.
A forensic analysis led authorities to Neeraj, a printing shop owner from Shahbad, Delhi, who was found to be a key supplier of fake diplomas and training certificates. Investigators recovered forged documents, diplomas, and computer systems used for fabricating credentials.
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Among the 47 arrested, six were touts, three were employees of pharmacy colleges, and 35 individuals were caught illegally operating as pharmacists or chemists. The ACB suspects that hundreds of unqualified individuals have been dispensing medicines across Delhi, with some not even having completed high school.
Authorities have registered a case, and further investigations are underway to trace the full extent of the scam. Officials fear that many more illegal pharmacies may be operating in the city, endangering public health with unregulated and potentially dangerous medical practices.