A proclaimed offender who was working as a ‘qualified doctor’ in a charitable dispensary in Delhi and had been prescribing allopathic medicine to scores of patients has finally been arrested.
Incidentally, it was a patient of his who had complained to the Delhi Medical Council (DMC) about the activities of the ‘doctor’. Thereafter, the DMC had worked in close coordination with the Delhi Police to get the accused apprehended.
“The accused (Naval Kishore Joshi) first came to Delhi in 2003 and applied to the Council for registration claiming to have a MBBS degree and MD (Medicine) from Patna University. He also claimed that he was registered as an allopathic doctor there,” said DMC secretary Dr. Girish Tyagi.
“This information was completely wrong and we found that Joshi was not an allopathic doctor. He had a degree in Ayurveda and was registered with the Council for alternative medicine. We had registered a case against him but the accused failed to appear for any of the court hearings and he was declared a proclaimed offender,” added Dr. Tyagi.
The Council secretary claimed that he was worried about the fact that the ‘quack’ was still working in Delhi and endangering the lives of innocent patients.
“But we could not track him down. We were also apprehensive about the fact that he might be dispensing medicines to patients and even performing minor medical interventions,” added Dr. Tyagi. He accepted that despite the laws against quackery Delhi still has over 40,000 quacks practising here.
“Our big break came when the quack was forced to appear in court for the case where a patient had complained against him to the Council. We immediately identified him as the person we were looking for and informed the police. Though the accused has been granted bail we are pleased that he has come under the judicial provisions and due action will be taken against him. Most importantly, we hope, he will not be able to endanger the life of more patients,” added Dr. Tyagi.
