New Delhi: The Bombay High Court asked the Maharashtra government to inform the role that local Congress MLA Zeeshan Siddique and actor Sonu Sood played in procurement of covid-19 related drugs.
Advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni said that, it was found that Siddiqui was helping people with the help of a trust named BDR foundation and the trust did not have the required permission to supply the drugs.
The high court also observed that “these people projected themselves as some kind of messiahs without verifying if the drugs were spurious or if the supply was legal”.
However, the bench of Justice SP Deshmukh and Justice GS Kulkarni asked if the case was registered against Siddiqui as well. Kumbhakoni said, “As of now, the case is not registered against the MLA as he merely diverted those who approached him to the trust.”
Justice Kulkarni then asked, “But all this happened at the behest of one person. To direct someone is not an offence? Examine this before we pass order”
The Maharashtra Government has informed that investigations and registration of criminal complaints in the cases. A case has been filed at the Mazgaon Magistrate’s Court against the trust and the trustee, Dheer Shah.
The Maha Govt said that that during the investigation regarding to Sonu Sood helping patients with Remdesivir vials they were directed “from A to B, and then from B to C and we finally ended up at shops inside Lifeline Medicare Hospital. It had come from Cipla in Bhiwandi. This is what we know so far. This is outside government allocation. An inquiry is pending.”
He was responding to previous orders of the high court passed while hearing a bunch of public interest litigations (PILs) on several issues related to the management of drugs.
The HC had directed the State government and the Centre to probe how celebrities and politicians had managed to procure and distribute anti-coronavirus drugs to the public when the supply of the same was scarce and was supposed to be allocated to States by the Union government.
