Scholarship scam: High court dismisses bail of two accused

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has dismissed anticipatory bail plea of two petitioners, including the owner of a Rajasthan-based private university, in the ₹40-crore post-matriculation scholarship scam in Haryana.One of the petitioners Jogender Singh is the owner of Om Parkash Jogender Singh University, Churu in Rajasthan, and second is Balinder Singh, an assistant with Welfare of Schedule Castes and Backward Classes department, Haryana.

Post-matriculation scholarships is Centre’s scheme in which students from Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes category are provided with admission fee, ranging between ₹50,000-₹65,000. The FIRs in the scam were registered in July 2019. As per Haryana

vigilance department, about 12 persons were involved, including some officials of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes department, in siphoning off ₹40 crore worth scholarships between 2015 and 2019.

The duo had approached court in 2019, claiming that they were not involved in dealing and sanctioning of such scholarships at any point of time during the said period.

However, state’s additional advocate general Deepak Sabharwal told court that Balinder Singh was very much involved in the scam. One Surinder Kumar had told police of assistant’s connivance. There were 603 calls exchanged between the assistant and co-accused Arvind Sangwan and 565 calls with co-accused Surinder Kumar.

Same Aadhaar cards have been used in all the districts, the court was told, adding that challan has already been presented against deputy director of the department RS Sangwan, and Surinder Kumar.

Sabharwal had told court that the students have not got anything. The tower location of Balinder, Arvind Sangwan and Surinder Kumar is prima facie found to be at the same place. As of complicity of Jogender Singh, the court was told that his complicity would be dependent upon outcome of the investigation.

A large number of students were shown to be admitted in the institute run by him. Singh is also involved in another case, the court was told.The bench of justice Raj Mohan Singh dismissed both the pleas, observing that since further investigation is on, it would not be appropriate to consider any such ‘innocence’ of the petitioners at this juncture.