New Delhi, July 23: Rashtrapati Bhavan received a fax from faraway Ohio at four this morning, seeking the President’s intervention in a scandal where government officials have been accused of ignoring complaints of faulty HIV testing kits.

What caught the attention of Rashtrapati Bhavan officials was not the subject of the letter, but who it was addressed to.

“Honourable Madame President” has got her first letter two days before Pratibha Patil is to be sworn in as India’s first woman President.

“We’ve received several congratulatory letters, but this is the first letter seeking her intervention against government officials,” a Rashtrapati Bhavan official said.

US-based doctor Kunal Saha’s two-page letter to Patil asks her to start an inquiry into why government AIDS officials have failed to stop the distribution of blood testing kits despite complaints that they were not functioning accurately.

Monozyme India Ltd had been given the contract to produce kits for Bengal in December 2004, two months after the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) received complaints from a Mumbai hospital about faulty kits supplied by the company.

Saha had filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging an anticipatory bail plea filed by Monozyme’s Amit Sarda, an accused in the HIV test kit scam.

Saha sought an independent inquiry into the document on the basis of which the bail was sought. The case is being heard.

Patil’s managers confirmed that Saha’s letter, forwarded to them by Rashtrapati Bhavan officials, was the first seeking her intervention in a “controversial” matter.

“She has received over a hundred congratulatory letters and scores of emails,” an aide said.

Patil has also received five appeals from residents of Jalgaon, Maharashtra, that their most famous neighbour do “something for them” and ensure better roads and water and electricity supply.