Mumbai : Taking serious note of the vaccination scams in Mumbai, the Bombay high court on Tuesday directed the Maharashtra government and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to put together a policy to ensure that citizens are not scammed, and implement the same immediately. The bench expressed its anguish at the fact that some persons played with the lives of people to make money and directed the state to ensure that the scamsters are punished strictly. The court directed the state to track vaccines being released. The court also asked the state to respond to the policy and measures it plans to put in place and action was taken against the scamsters by Thursday.

The division bench of chief justice DipankarDatta and justiceGirishKulkarni, while hearing a petition filed by an activist, was informed that there were multiple instances of societies and educational institutions being scammed by persons claiming to be attached to some private hospital and holding fraudulent vaccination camps in societies. The scam came to light after the beneficiaries could not get their certificates verified.

A group of five persons was booked and arrested by the Kandivali police station last week after a society lodged a complaint of the fraudulent vaccination drive as they were not able to get their vaccination certificate verified. After the case was registered, another complaint was lodged at Versova police station by a media house claiming a similar scam. An educational institution at Borivali also registered a similar complaint thereafter. Expressing shock and concern, the bench also directed the BMC to ensure that the medical officer of each ward was keeping track of vaccination drives being conducted privately in their respective wards. Observing that the fraud was reported only in the western suburbs, the bench asked the state to track and trace the main perpetrators and the brains behind it.