Over 2000 people administered fake vaccines, Mumbai Police tells High Court

By LE Desk

Mumbai, June 25, 2021: Over 2,000 people received fake Covid-19 vaccines at nine separately held private vaccination camps in Mumbai, the police has informed Bombay High Court. The police also said that four FIRs have been registered in connection with the matter after recording statements of nearly 400 witnesses so far.

The high court expressed concern over the citizens who received the fake vaccines and asked the state government and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to formulate specific policy or guidelines to prevent such incidents in the future and, without delay, file affidavits by the next hearing, reported The Indian Express.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Girish S Kulkarni was hearing a PIL filed by Siddharth Chandrashekhar seeking the court’s intervention over the issues faced by citizens in booking vaccination slots on the CoWin portal. The petitioner also sought priority slots for the elderly.

Advocate Anita Shekhar-Castellino, appearing for the petitioner, had earlier informed the high court about news reports pertaining to incidents of unauthorised or fake Covid-19 vaccination drives in the city and said strict action was required. 

On Tuesday, the high court had directed the state and BMC to formulate a policy to ensure that such instances were not repeated and had sought progress reports on investigations into such incidents.

On Thursday, Chief Public Prosecutor Deepak Thakare, representing Mumbai Police, submitted a ‘confidential’ status report on the investigation and said that four FIRs have been registered in Mumbai and the probe is in progress, reported The Indian Express.

He added that one of the accused, Dr. Manish Tripathi, was absconding and another accused Ashish Mishra, who belongs to Aditya College of Architecture is yet to be arrested. He also said that the bail pleas of Mishra and another accused Rajesh Pandey were rejected by courts. Thakare requested the court to direct authorities and others to inform police before holding private vaccination camps.

Thakare further informed that 2,053 persons were given fake vaccines, including 390 vaccinations at Hiranandani Health Club at Kandivali (W), 207 at Podar Education Society in Parel, 514 in Borivali, 30 at Malad West and nearly 365 persons at a drive organised for employees of Tips Industries at Khar, among others,

Senior Counsel Anil Sakhare for the BMC submitted that the civic body has also lodged a police complaint after it came to know about the fake drives. The BMC counsel also said that it has written to Serum Institute of India (SII), which manufactures Covishield, to look into the issue, The Indian Express said.

The bench then asked the state and BMC whether they had come up with any policy or guidelines to prevent such fake vaccination drives/camps as directed earlier, to which Additional Government Pleader Geeta Shastri sought time to respond.

The bench said, “Tell us how will you (authorities) take care of all of these issues? We want a specific policy on fake vaccination. You cannot delay like this, every minute is important. This is an urgent matter. Every minute is important and time is of essence.”

“Our anxiety is what happens to these people who received fake vaccines? They all should be tested for antibodies and find out what is the effect of these fake vials and thereafter they can be properly vaccinated,” it added, said The Indian Express.