Lucknow, Aug 9 The special PMLA court has taken cognisance of the chargesheet filed by Enforcement Directorate (ED) against three persons in the multi-crore scholarship fraud case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on July 23.
The ED officials said that the court was pleased to take cognisance of the chargesheet against three accused including two brothers Izhar Hussain Jafri and Ali Abbas Jafri, the owners of Hygia College of Pharmacy and their employee Ravi Prakash Gupta.
The trio was arrested under PMLA on April 26 and are currently in jail since then.
A senior ED official said extensive searches were conducted at nine pharmacy colleges and other educational institutes of Lucknow, Hardoi and Farrukhabad based on intelligence input about illegal acquisition and use of the government’s scholarship fund, which was given to facilitate the education of SC, ST, PH and EWS candidates.
Seizures were made under provisions of PMLA, 2002, said officials.
An official said four Lucknow colleges that were raided are SS Institute of Management, Hygia College of Pharmacy, Hygia Institute of Pharmacy/Central Institute of Pharmacy and Institute of Management and Education.
Besides, four Hardoi colleges, Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar Foundation and Jivika College of Pharmacy, RP Inter College, Gyanwati Inter College and Jagdish Prasad Verma, Uchatar Madhyamik Vidyalaya and a college in Farrukhabad --Dr Om Prakash Gupta Institute of Management and Technology, were also raided.
The investigation revealed that these institutes and colleges had unlawfully availed scholarships in the names of several ineligible candidates.
He said the investigation revealed that these colleges and institutes used bank accounts even of minor children in the age group of 07 to 12 years of age and persons in age group of 45 years and above in order to avail more and more of scholarship funds.
He said these institutes opened 3000 such accounts using documents of various persons and common email IDs.
A huge number of SIM cards and stamps and seals of various institutes were found and seized from the accused persons’ premises during searches. He said the probe discovered that these institutes and colleges were found involved in forgery and fabrication of various documents.
It was also revealed during investigation that most of the beneficiaries are villagers who are not even aware of these bank accounts and have never received any scholarships.
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