The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked a 45-year-old man from Gujarat for allegedly posing as an official at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and threatening the management of a renowned eye hospital with branches across India to settle a legal dispute with an Indore-based hospital.
According to the CBI, the man identified as Mayank Tiwari, claiming himself to be the Director of Strategic Advisory at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Director of Government Advisory of PMO, threatened Dr Agarwal’s Group of Eye Hospitals “to forget the alleged dues of Rs 16.43 crore” owed by the Indore hospital.
When the Prime Minister’s Office came to know of the fraudulent activity, it immediately asked the CBI to probe the alleged impersonation case. “Prima Facie, this is a case of impersonation of a PMO official and misuse of the name of the PMO, since neither this individual nor the professed designation exists in this office,” the PMO said in a reference to the CBI.
In a complaint to the CBI joint director, Under Secretary Chirag M Panchal said that Dr Agarwal’s Health Care Limited (Dr Agarwal’s), as part of expanding its reach in each city of the country, came into contact with two doctors – Dr Pranay Kumar Singh and Dr Sonu Verma – of the Indore hospital.
“The two doctors entered into an agreement with the hospital on January 31, 2020, under the terms that the existing business of their hospital will be transferred to Dr Agarwal’s. It was also agreed that the entire team of their hospital along with both the doctors will merge with Dr Agarwal’s to provide their expert services,” the complainant said, adding that Dr Agarwal’s paid Rs 16.43 crore as per the agreement.
The complainant alleged that after receiving the money, both doctors, however, started diverting all the patients coming to Dr Agarwal’s Eye Hospital in Indore to other eye doctors. They also terminated the agreements executed with them and refused to refund the amount to Dr Agarwal’s.
According to the PMO, the matter went to the High Court which appointed an arbitrator to negotiate. The arbitrator in an interim injunction asked Indore-based hospital to deposit Rs 16.43 crore within four weeks.
“During the dispute, the promoters of Dr Agrawal’s started getting messages and calls from Tiwari to forget the alleged dues and settle the matter with the doctors running the Indore hospital,” a CBI official said.
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The CBI got to know that Tiwari, who has been working in consultancy firms, started using the fake identity during the Covid-19 pandemic to procure oxygen and beds in hospitals for his friends and later used it to avail other benefits.
Four months ago, the Gujarat Police arrested Mayank Tiwari for using his fake PMO identity to allegedly dupe a trustee of Vadodara’s Parul University in March 2022.
This is the second case after another Gujarat native Kiran Patel was arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir Police in March this year for claiming to be a PMO official.