Mumbai:
BJP Lok Sabha MP Sujay Vikhe Patil on Monday refuted before the Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court reports that he had procured 10,000 vials of Remdesivir injections, used in COVID-19 treatment, from Delhi.
Vikhe Patil’s counsel Shirish Gupte told a division bench headed by Justice R V Ghuge that the Ahmednagar MP had only transported 15 boxes, each containing 80 vials of Remdesivir, from Chandigarh to Shirdi airport.
“The 1,200 vials were then handed over to Ahmednagar district civil hospital. Before that, 500 vials of Remdesivir were procured from a company Pharmadeal in Sadashiv Peth in Pune and handed over to the hospital,” Gupte said, adding there were receipts and documents to prove this.
Vikhe Patil on Monday filed an application seeking to be impleaded as a party respondent in a petition filed by four agriculturists seeking criminal action against him for bringing Remdesivir injections allegedly from Delhi to Ahmednagar on a private flight last month.
“The applicant (Patil) only transported 1,200 vials of Remdesivir from Chandigarh to Shirdi by private flight. We do not know how and who came up with this 10,000 vials figure and that it was being brought from Delhi,” Gupte said.
The court said it would consider the application filed by Vikhe Patil on May 5.
“Your client (Vikhe Patil) needs to introspect. He need not have indulged in gimmicks of recording himself in the aircraft and airport and uploading the videos making claims that he has used his contacts to procure medicine for the people in his constituency. He should not have done that,” Justice Ghuge said.
Gupte then said the MP was a young man and, hence, must have done so but that does not make him an accused.
The Ahmednagar Superintendent of Police also submitted a report to the court on Monday stating that Patil had got 15 boxes, each containing 80 vials of Remdesivir, to Ahmednagar, which were handed over to the civil surgeon of the Ahmednagar civil hospital.
