400 pupils questioned in scholarship scam case

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 11

The ongoing Vigilance Bureau investigation into the post-matric scholarship (PMS) scam has turned murkier, with around 400 students being questioned in Panchkula and Yamunanagar and officials of the OPJS University in Rajasthan under the scanner. The Tribune broke the story on the PMS scam on April 6 and the Chief Minister ordered a Vigilance probe on June 1.

In one instance, while investigating a case of scholarship disbursal to 363 students, the Vigilance Bureau questioned 77 students in Panchkula. Of them, 48 confirmed that the account numbers shown against their names were not theirs. In case of 198 students between 2015-16 and 2017-18, money could not be transferred as Aadhaar numbers were not linked to bank accounts. An amount of Rs 12.66 lakh was fraudulently withdrawn.

In Yamunanagar, while investigating a case of disbursal of scholarship to 1,939 students,  260 students confirmed that the bank accounts shown against their names were not theirs. The quantum of fraud was Rs 51.25 lakh though it could be more had the banks not approved disbursal in case of 429 students between 2015-16 and 2017-18 as their Aadhaar number and bank accounts did not match.

The police registered an FIR against officials of the Department of Welfare of SCs and BCs, including Deputy Director Anil Kumar, former Deputy Director RS Sangwan and accountant Surender Kumar.

In another instance, scholarship amount was released in 2015-16 to 41 SC women of Yamunanagar, who were shown to have taken admission in the OPJS University. When the Vigilance Bureau contacted them, they said they neither took admission nor applied for scholarship.

It was found that Gurdev Kaur of Yamunanagar, her daughter Ritik Singh and Mayank Chaudhary of Ghaziabad allegedly got bank accounts of women students opened in the name of providing free computer course and providing free sewing machines. They allegedly kept ATM cards and passbooks of the students. They allegedly got them admitted to the OPJS University.

Cheating case against Chairman of OPJS University  

• The Vigilance Bureau registered a case of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy against then Chairman of OPJS University JS Dalal, Registrar Jitendra Yadav, Gurdev Kaur, Ritik Singh, Mayank Chaudhary and Mukesh Kumar for duping the state exchequer of Rs 24.51 lakh
•  The Vigilance Bureau had earlier registered a separate FIR for embezzlement of Rs 23.06 crore in Rohtak, Sonepat and Jhajjar while Rs 5.20 crore was returned by banks over suspicious transactions