Jammu: The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) on Monday booked a former director and seven institutes in connection with an alleged post-matric scholarship scam in the tribal affairs department which led to misappropriation of government funds worth crores of rupees in Jammu and Kashmir between 2014 and 2018.
Those booked in the case include the then Director of Tribal Affairs, J-K, M S Choudhary, Shanaz Akhtar Malik of Catalog Computers, Humera Banu and Firdous Ahmed of Chirag Institute of IT, and Sham Lal Targotra of JKS Industrial Training Institute.
“Anti-Corruption Bureau registered a formal case against Choudhary and others into the allegations of gross violation of guidelines and release of crores of rupees to unrecognised institutes for unrecognised courses while implementing the post-matric scholarship – a Government of India-sponsored scheme entitled for ST candidates,” an ACB spokesperson said.
Jindar Mehlu of R.S. Pura, Jaffer Hussain Wani of Ever Green Institute of Computer Technology, Parshotam Bharadwaj of Global Institute of IT, Ramneek Kour of Pankaj Memorial Charitable Trust for Education and Research, and Puneet Mahajan of Supertech (India) Computer Education were among the institute owners booked.
During the course of verification, it was revealed that the central government had launched the post-matric scholarship scheme for ST candidates to help them complete their education by providing financial assistance in the form of a scholarship amounting to Rs 18,000 per student plus Rs 2,300 as maintenance allowance, the spokesperson said.
The objective of the scheme was to provide financial support to tribal students studying at the post-matriculation or post-secondary stage to enable them to complete their education, along with reimbursement of compulsory fees charged by recognized institutes.
“The private institutes situated in Jammu district managed to obtain documents of ST students and submitted them to the directorate of tribal affairs.
“But the officers and officials, without verifying the genuineness of the institutes, their infrastructure and the course content, disbursed scholarship amounts worth crores between 2014 and 2018 directly into the bank accounts of these institutes,” the spokesperson alleged.
ACB’s verification further revealed that the students against whom payments were released had neither sought admission nor attended the free computer courses.
“Some of the students, though they sought admission under the said scheme, never attended or only partially attended the computer courses. However, the benefit, in the form of full tuition fees, was credited to the accounts of different computer institutions,” he alleged.
The investigation also pointed out that one of the institutes, in order to increase its strength, managed to obtain documents of ST students from remote areas and filled scholarship forms in their names.
“Moreover, some fake bank accounts were opened in the names of ST students without their consent or knowledge, as it was mandatory to include account numbers in the forms for crediting maintenance allowance directly into the students’ accounts,” the spokesperson claimed.
The officers and officials, by sheer abuse of their official positions and in criminal conspiracy with the owners of the institutes through manipulation of records and violation of scheme guidelines, misappropriated huge amounts of government funds during the years 2014 to 2018, causing massive loss to the public exchequer, he alleged.
Further investigation in the case is underway, the spokesperson said.
