NHRM scam: Court asks Uttar Pradesh to explain delay

Allahabad High Court Thursday summoned the Uttar Pradesh principal health secretary to explain the delay in allowing the CBI to prosecute officials accused in the National Rural Health Mission (NHRM) scam.

The Lucknow bench of the court asked principal secretary, health, Sanjay Agarwal to appear before it by 2 p.m. and explain the delay.

The court also rapped the CBI for verbally informing it about the investigation and gave the agency 48 hours to file a written affidavit on the progress of probe.
It also told the agency to wrap up the probe in 20 days.

The CBI had sent a request letter to the Uttar Pradesh government May 23 seeking
prosecution of 22 doctors and IAS officer Pradeep Shukla in the scam.

But the files since then have been shuttling between the health and the law department.
Proximity of the accused to political masters was the stumbling block, official sources said.
Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had Wednesday said that "some innocent people have been charged in the scam".

This had led to the speculation that the state government was unwilling to give CBI the green signal.