CBI scans accounts of pvt educational institutes in HP, Hry

₹250-CR SCHOLARSHIP SCAM Financial records of 22 such institutions confiscated, involvement of bank officials detected

: Three days after it registered a case in the ₹250-crore scholarship scam in Himachal Pradesh, the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) on Wednesday confiscated financial records of 22 education institutions across the hill state and in neighbouring Haryana.

The CBI sleuths scanned accounts of private education institutions and students who availed scholarship benefits and also detected the involvement of some bank officials in the scam.

“CBI teams visited different banks and gathered details. We are scrutinising the records,” probe agency’s spokesman RK Gaur said.

The CBI recently registered a case against Himachal Pradesh education department officials and many private education institutes under sections 409, 419, 465, 466 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code, alleging fraud in disbursement of scholarship money meant for Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Class (OBC) students.

CBI teams had also conducted searches on the premises of 22 education institutions in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Union Territory of Chandigarh.

Inquiry conducted by the education department earlier had revealed that more than 2,38,089 eligible students from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes were deprived of scholarships under various centrally-sponsored schemes while ineligible candidates were given admissions and fictitious bank accounts were opened for the payment of scholarships by various institutions. The probe also revealed that ₹226 crore was disbursed through fake admissions and money was deposited in different bank accounts both within and outside the state. A large number of accounts were tracked to Haryana, Chandigarh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The probe detected that same bank account was used to deposit the money in 181 cases.

As many as 5,262 beneficiaries had used the same Aadhaar card to claim the benefits. It also came to light that education department officials released utilisation certificates to many students without verifying their accounts.

The scam remained hidden as people who created an online portal for disbursement of the scholarship scheme and those who actually transferred the amount were the same, the inquiry pointed out.

After the scholarship scam to light, Himachal chief minister Jai Ram Thakur recommended a CBI probe into the matter.

INQUIRY BY EDUCATION DEPARTMENT HAD REVEALED THAT MORE THAN 2.3 LAKH ELIGIBLE SC/ST STUDENTS WERE DEPRIVED OF SCHOLARSHIPS