Investigate corruption allegations against Essential Drugs: HC to ACC
The High Court has ordered the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to investigate the allegations of 32 irregularities during audit and Tk477 crore embezzlement against the only state owned medicine manufacturer Essential Drugs Company Limited.
The High Court bench of Justice Md Nazrul Islam Talukder and Justice Khizir Hayat gave the suo motu rule on Sunday taking cognizance of a news report of a national daily.
The ACC was given two months to file a probe report in this regard. Also, the court said, huge corruption was committed by the drug manufacturer and there was moral degradation as lesser than the recommended amount of raw materials were used during medicine production.
Advocate Khurshid Alam Khan represented the ACC during the hearing and Deputy Attorney General AKM Amin Uddin Manik represented the state.
According to the report of Manab Zamin, a government audit committee found many irregularities in the operations of Essential Drugs including buying raw materials at a higher price than market price, showing less production of drugs than the procured raw materials, giving tender in violation of rules, recruitment on ad hoc basis without any circular and many more.