Rajasthan ambulance scam: CBI examines Ziqitza directors

New Delhi: CBI has examined two directors of Ziqitza Health Care - Ravi Krishna and Shweta Mangal - in connection with alleged irregularities in running Ambulance services in Rajasthan.

The sources said Ravi Krishna, son of former Union Minister and Congress leader Vayalar Ravi, and Sweta Mangal, both named as suspects in the Rajasthan police FIR which has been taken up by CBI for investigation, were grilled at CBI headquarters here recently.

The agency is scrutinising the records of Registrar of Companies to understand the changes that have gone in the Board of Directors of the company over the period, they said.

Congress leader Sachin Pilot, who has also been named as suspect by Rajasthan Police in the FIR registered after BJP government came in power, had claimed that he had cut relations with the Ziqitza Health Care before becoming the Member of Parliament in 2004 when the company changed from "non profit" to "for profit".

In the FIR taken up by CBI, it is alleged that the then directors of the company former union minister and current Rajasthan Pradesh Congress chief Sachin Pilot, Karthi Chidambaram, son of former union minister P Chidambaram, Ravi Krishna and Sweta Mangal, still a director of the firm - manipulated terms of the contract in order to secure it.

Others accused in the case are former Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and then Health Minister of the state Duru Mirza and as well as the Director of National Rural Health Mission, sources in the CBI said.

"The FIR was registered against the then Directors of the private firm at Mumbai/Jaipur and others including public servants under section 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468, 471 and 120-B of IPC on the allegations of irregularities in the award of tender in favour of the said firm by deliberately inserting technical specifications and irregularities in the implementation of the project which included excess bills claimed by said firm and paid to them," CBI spokesperson had said.