The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday conducted searches at 22 locations across six districts in Uttar Pradesh in connection with a case of money laundering against some educational institutions which fraudulently availed of post-matriculation government scholarships meant for students from minority, Dalit and tribal communities.
The agency said its investigations have revealed that scholarships worth Rs 75 crore have been availed of by these institutions and some of the scholarships had been taken against bank accounts of seven-year-olds.
According to the ED, the central and state governments provide various scholarships to facilitate the education of SC, ST and physically handicapped candidates. Further, some scholarships are meant for minority candidates and students from economically weaker sections (EWS).
“ED investigation revealed that in order to avail more and more of scholarship funds, these colleges and institutes used bank accounts of children in the age group of 7 to 12 years and persons in the age group of 45 years and above. Investigation conducted so far revealed that these institutes opened around 3,000 such accounts using documents of various persons. Most of the accounts are in the name of simple villagers who are not even aware of these bank accounts and have never received any scholarships till date,” the ED said in a statement.
The ED searches also discovered active involvement of various agents, including one Ravi Prakash Gupta. It claimed the entire scam was operated with the assistance of several agents of FINO Payment Bank, including Mohd. Sahil Aziz, Amit Kumar Maurya, Tanveer Ahmad and Jitendra Singh.
“The scam was committed by misusing relaxed procedure adopted for account opening on the platform of FINO Payment Bank. The offenders had opened all bank accounts in Lucknow and Mumbai branches of FINO. The institutes also availed the services of the FINO agents in both electronic transfers and cash withdrawal of the scholarship funds. Then the proceeds of crime were rotated to various bank accounts under control of the owners of the institutes and their related entities and persons,” the ED statement said.
As per the rules, the scholarship money is required to be credited directly in the bank accounts of the students. But, the defaulting institutes bypassed the rules and arranged to take direct possession of the account kits from the agents of FINO bank, according to the ED probe.
“Further, with active aid and assistance of FINO agents, institutes arranged to take undated, pre-signed blank cheque books of these accounts in their custody and misappropriated scholarship funds in accordance with their wishes. In some cases, the institutes and their employees even managed to illegally receive and use the IDs and passwords originally issued to the FINO bank agents by bank and also managed to operate Micro ATM issued by the bank on the institutes’ premises,” ED said.
During the searches the agency seized huge number of SIM cards and stamps and seals of various entities.
“Investigations conducted so far have revealed that the institutes/colleges were prima facie involved in forgery and fabrication of various documents. During the course of the searches, various incriminating evidence and records related to money laundering in the names of suspected persons, members of their family and their associates were found and seized under relevant provisions of PMLA, 2002. Cash worth Rs 36.51 lakh and foreign currency $956 were also found and seized during the searches,” the agency said.
According to the ED, the searches were conducted on the premises of S S Institute of Management, Mampur, Lucknow; Hygia College of Pharmacy, Lucknow; Hygia Institute of Pharmacy/Central Institute of Pharmacy, Lucknow; Lucknow Institute of Management and Education, Lucknow; Dr Om Prakash Gupta Institute of Management and Technology, Farrukhabad; Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar Foundation and Jivika College of Pharmacy, Hardoi; R P Inter College, Bhatai, Hardoi; Gyanwati Inter College, Terwa, Madhoganj, Hardoi and Jagdish Prasad Verma Uchatar Madhyamik Vidyalaya, Gaushganj, Kachauna, Hardoi.
The Hygia group of colleges is controlled and managed by I.H. Jafri, OP Gupta Institute by Shivam Gupta, SS Institute by Praveen Kumar Chauhan and Jivika College by Ram Gupta, the ED said.