KR Hospital's retired doctor held in fake certificate racket

A retired doctor of K R Hospital here who was allegedly running a medical fitness certificate racket has been arrested by Devaraja police on Friday. Dr R Muddukrishna, a retired Casualty Medical Officer (CMO) of the hospital, has been arrested along with four others including a ‘D’ group worker of the same hospital.

Muddukrishna, aged 69 years, is a resident of Wesley road, Tilak Nagar here. He was working at a private hospital in Nazarbad post-retirement, but was operating the racket from his house, after duplicating the rubber stamp and letter-head of the hospital, with the help of other accused.

The other accused in the case are — Sagai Raj, 48, ‘D’ group worker, K R Hospital, Belavatha; C P Velu, 65, retired driver of K R Hospital ambulance, Kalyangiri; Krishna, Vidyaranyapuram; and Nataraj, aged 45, Gayathripuram. The accused doctor was issuing the certificates claiming himself to be the deputy chief medical officer, after collecting Rs 100 to Rs 200 per certificate.

A month ago, Medical Superintendent of K R Hospital Dr B G Sagar received three such medical certificates for verification. Two certificates were from J K Tyres factory on KRS road and one from the Taluk Office. The authorities concerned of the said organisations had forwarded the certificates received from their workers to avail sick leave, for verification.
Sagar was astonished to find that the certificates were validated by three different doctors — Dr Muddukrishna R, Dr R Krishna and Dr R M Krishna, who later emerged to be the same person using different names.

Sagar found that the certificates were not in the prescribed format, as the hospital has a set format, which is issued after collecting the prescribed fee of Rs 200 each, both for medical certificate (to avail leave) and medical fitness certificate (to declare that he or she is fit to resume work again).

Sensing foul play, Sagar lodged a complaint with Police Commissioner M A Saleem, who directed the jurisdictional Devaraja police to investigate into it. Acting on the basis of three certificates, the investigators reached the accused doctor. It is not known since when Muddukrishna has been operating the racket, as only three such certificates have been found in the recent past, said a police officer.