Cuttack, Dec. 17: Police have registered cases against three SCB Medical College and Hospital employees for their alleged involvement in the misappropriation of user fees collected from patients.

Though the exact amount of money misappropriated is yet to be estimated, the Mangalabag police have registered the cases against Dilip Kumar Gochayat, Basant Ray and Ajay Barik.

All the three employees were in charge of user fee collection at Regional Diagnostic Centre and blood bank at the premier state-run hospital. The authorities suspended them on Monday after initial estimates revealed that they had swindled funds amounting to Rs 1 crore.

“The three accused persons had not returned the money collected or the user-fee receipt books,” said SCB emergency officer B.N. Moharana.

Moharana said the hospital had earlier served notices on them to return the receipt books because the user fee was being collected manually at various counters of the hospital. User fee is also being collected online after the computerisation of the collection counters in 2012. The amount of misappropriation can be ascertained only after the final audit is over, Moharana said.

The cases were registered against the three employees based on a complaint filed by the SCB authorities yesterday, said Sk Sharifuddin, inspector-in-charge of Mangalabag police station.

SCB sources said that misappropriation of user fee came to light during the audit that was being done to ascertain the exact amount of user fee collected from various patients for 2010-11 and 2011-12.

Around 18 employees, who were allotted money receipt books for collection of user fee in 2011, had neither deposited the money nor submitted the receipt books.

Later, all of them were served notices by the hospital to return the money collected by them in the form of user fee along with the receipt books after the audit began in October.

Although 15 employees had returned nearly Rs 15 lakh along with 135 receipt books, these three employees had not returned the receipt books.

A total of 387 receipt books were allotted to the employees for collection of user fee under various heads at the hospital. Consequently, 252 more receipt books are yet to be submitted.

“A detailed investigation needs to be done to penalise all the officials and employees involved in the misappropriation of user fee,” said Saurabh Das, a resident of Ranihat.