‘Not one rupee traced to me’: Health services ex-chief seeks bail in Rs 700-crore fraud

The money trail in the Rs 700-crore medical supplies fraud case has not been traced to former Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) chief Dr Vatsala Aggarwal, her lawyer submitted before a Delhi court on Monday, citing the chargesheet. The submission came as the former DGHS chief sought regular bail in the matter.

“The chargesheet traces the payments made by the Central Procurement Agency (CPA) to the bank accounts of the five supplier firms and records that bank records have been obtained to identify the ‘ultimate beneficiaries’ yet it does not identify a single rupee reaching the Applicant or any account connected with her,” read her bail plea before Special Judge Vidya Prakash of the Rouse Avenue Court.

The CPA is the nodal agency that supplies medicines, vaccines and medical equipment to Delhi government hospitals and healthcare facilities.

Procurement operations, bid formations, evaluations, and tender portal management fell under the exclusive domain of the CPA, and Dr Agarwal never had access to the tender portal, the bail plea claimed, adding that the physical custody of the procurement files rested with the CPA.

The Delhi government’s Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB), which is investigating the case, filed the chargesheet in the case on September 16. It named three public servants Dr Vinod Kumar Ranga, Head of Office (HOO) of the CPA, Dr Aggarwal; and former Deputy Controller of Accounts, CPA along with two private entities, M/s F-Med Devices and M/s M Sahib and Sons Pvt. Ltd.

Last week, the alleged mastermind of the fraud, Rajiv Rangila, a pharmaceutical trader, surrendered before the ACB after remaining absconding for more than two months.

Dr Agarwal’s bail plea claimed,“… the Health Department, Government of NCT of Delhi, submitted a report before the Directorate of Vigilance, GNCTD, finding that there was no overpricing in the procurement of medicines, medical equipment and hospital supplies by the CPA, as was reported on 06.08.2026.”

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It added, “The chargesheet does not cite a single call, message, chat or meeting between the Applicant and the private accused Rajiv Kumar @ Rajiv Rangila or any of the accused firms, and her interaction with Dr Ranga was confined to the official administrative hierarchy and documented file processing.”

The plea also stated searches at her house yielded “neither any unaccounted cash, nor any document connected with the questioned procurements”.

It added: “…the only documents seized were papers relating to the applicant’s own investments, and the chargesheet does not allege that any such investment is disproportionate to her known sources of income or is traceable to the questioned procurements. The Applicant was remanded to judicial custody on 29.06.2026.”

The case revolves around alleged widespread irregularities, manipulated tenders, and the siphoning of public funds meant for medicines, surgical items, and hospital equipment. The alleged irregularities first came to light in May this year when the Vigilance department conducted raids after receiving complaints at the offices of the CPA.

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Dr Ranga, Head of Office (HOO) of the CPA, was the first person to be arrested over the alleged fraud on June 18. This was followed by Dr Agarwal’s arrest.

Spanning over several thousand pages, the chargesheet relies on 84 prosecution witnesses and lists 123 documents.

The ACB is analysing images on the memory cards of the CCTV cameras of the CPA office, along with a forensic analysis of 29 hard disks seized from the CPA office at Shakarpur. It is also investigating the ownership of six shops in Laxmi Nagar, which are allegedly owned by Rangila.