LOBATSE: The country's famed heart specialist Professor Kiran Bhagat is a liar and a fraudster, who practised medicine without lawful and proper registration, High Court Judge Michael Leburu has said. Leburu was dismissing a case in which Professor Bhagat was challenging a decision by the Botswana Health Professionals not to register him as a cardiologist and only restricting him to practise as a general physician a year or two ago. The judge also ordered that the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) should investigate and even try him for criminal conduct.
He said that Bhagat was never registered as a medical practitioner in 1996 as he proclaims and was masquarading as Kaushik Bhagat, as shown by correspondence between him and BHPC. "Such a letter, particularly his registration status and date of registration, i.e. the year 1996, was a complete fabrication, devoid of any truth. It was pure dishonesty on the part of the applicant to have stated that he was first registered in 1996. To this court, the applicant is now saying he was registered in April 2000. Why is the applicant approbating and reprobating?" The judge said Bhagat hoodwinked, cajoled and tricked BHPC to change the names from Kaushik Kumar Bhagat in the Practising Card into his names in 2006.
