Scholarship scam: HC issues notice to govt, CBI

Legal Correspondent 

Shimla, October 18

The High Court today issued notice to the state government and the CBI over the alleged Rs 250-crore scholarship scam.

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice L Narayana Swamy and Justice Dharam Chand Chaudhary directed the authorities to file a status report within two weeks and listed the matter for hearing on November 14.

The court passed the orders on a petition filed by Shyam Lal of Bilaspur, contending therein that with a view to inquiring the alleged scam, the state government had appointed the State Project Officer to inquire into the misappropriation of the scholarships under Centrally sponsored post-metric scholarship scheme for the benefits of students belonging to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities.  

It was further averred that after conducting the inquiry, he lodged an FIR on November 10, 2018, on the directions of the Secretary (Education). The petitioner had further alleged that from the inquiry report, it was revealed that a huge sum of scholarship money was misappropriated and, apart from educational institutions in the state, many other institutions in other states were also involved in this scam. Consequently, the matter was handed over to the CBI. 

The petitioner further alleged that the approach, adopted by the CBI for investigating the matter, was not proper as it had decided to investigate only 22 of the more than 2,772 institutions that were named in the preliminary investigation report of the State Project Officer. 

The petitioner urged the court to direct the CBI to investigate all institutions and, thereafter, bring such investigation(s) to the logical conclusion by filing criminal cases against all erring institutions named in the list.