A 53-year-old man from Jharkhand, Padmanava Mukhi Karua, has been arrested for the third time for pretending to be a doctor. He was working at Rourkela Government Hospital (RGH) through an outsourcing agency and has been charged with forgery and impersonation.

This is not the first time Padmanava has been caught for this crime. He was previously arrested in 2019 for posing as a doctor. His latest arrest came after he was found to have stolen the identity of Dr. Ramesh Chandra Jha to get a job as a medical officer in the dialysis unit of RGH in December of the previous year. Padmanava managed to deceive the system until Bajaj Finance, from which he had taken a personal loan of Rs 16 lakh, re-examined his documents and discovered the fraud. The discrepancy was noticed when a document carried the phone number of the real Dr. Jha.

Rourkela police received a complaint from Bajaj Finance, which led to the investigation. It was found that in 2010, Padmanava was appointed at Hi-Tech Medical College and Hospital (HTMCH) but fled when his identity was exposed. In 2019, he was arrested by town police in Sundargarh for fraudulently getting posted at Hathbari primary health center (PHC) in Nuagaon block. He had worked there for about three years before being caught.

Padmanava’s arrest in 2019 came after Sundargarh Chief District Medical Officer (CDMO) Dr. SK Mishra suspected foul play and had his credentials verified from VIMSAR, Burla. The investigation led to his arrest on November 13, 2019.

Dr. Ganesh Prasad Dash, the superintendent of RGH, mentioned that the hospital had no way to detect the impersonation earlier because Padmanava had registered with the Odisha Council of Medical Registration a few months prior.

Mayur Agarwal, area manager of Rahi Care Pvt. Ltd., the outsourcing agency, confirmed that Padmanava had sound technical knowledge. The firm only learned about his deception from the police and has since disengaged him. Padmanava was earning around Rs 50,000 per month from the agency.

Padmanava’s background reveals he grew up in Rourkela, where his father worked at the Rourkela Steel Plant. He studied until Class XII in the steel city before moving to Jamshedpur, where he worked in a chemist shop and developed an interest in medicine. This led him to fake his career as a doctor.

(Input from various sources)

(Rehash/ Susmita Bhandary/MSM)