Hyderabad: Prosecution of government teachers in the medial reimbursement scam appeared to have been put on the back burner. The '5.04cr scam surfaced during the Congress rule when 364 government teachers were said to have produced fake bills to claim medical benefit. The government then ordered for an investigation.
The vigilance and enforcement identified 364 teachers involved in the scam and directed prosecution under Sections 403 and 409 of IPC (criminal misappropriation) and submitted a report in 2010.
However, the state education department instead of granting prosecution, ordered reclaiming the medical reimbursements money and curbing their increment.
The vigilance wing report of 2010 suggested that such cases should be reported to the police and criminal prosecution launched. Secretary of the Forum for Good Governance M. Padmanabha Reddy, who filed the RTI regarding the scam, said, “The school education department of the Secretariat kept the vigilance report pending for three years after it was submitted in 2010. Later, it did not agree with the recommendation of the Vigilance Commission for criminal prosecution. However, departmental punishment was ordered under which the amount drawn by producing fake medical bills would be recovered. In addition, it ordered withholding three increments.”
Mr Reddy said that based on the decision, about '4 crore out of '5.04 crore illegally drawn by 364 teachers was recovered. So far no action to withhold three increments was initiated. A DEO from Nizamabad said criminal action was not initiated for want of original bills. In a few cases, the amount was not recovered as these persons had retired and were drawing due pension, he added.
