Pune, Apr 6 ((PTI) The secretary of the Servants of India Society, the parent body of the prestigious Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, was arrested for alleged cheating and misappropriation of funds, a Pune police official said on Sunday.
Milind Deshmukh was arrested on Saturday on the complaint of the deputy registrar of GIPE Vishal Gaikwad, the Deccan Gymkhana police station official said.
“Funds of Rs 1.5 crore belonging to GIPE were allegedly diverted for the purchase of land for SIS. The alleged misappropriation took place in 2022-23. Deshmukh has been booked under IPC sections 406, 420 and 34 for criminal breach of trust, cheating and other offences,” the official said.
Deshmukh, while working as SIS secretary, in December 2022 drafted a letter with his own signature to Gokhale Institute in which he demanded to free hold SIS land in Nagpur worth Rs 1.5 crore, the complaint stated.
“Deshmukh didn’t seek any permission. A letterhead of SIS was used where the letter itself had a stamp of Gokhale Institute. After receiving the said demand letter, the Board of Management of Gokhale Institute immediately approved it on December 14, 2022. In February 2023 Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics informed the Servants of India Society to pay Rs. 1.50 crore for the land in Nagpur,” it said.
“Deshmukh and his other associates violated the order in a planned manner. As per Deshmukh’s demand, Rs 1.02 crore was sent to the account of Nagpur District Collector while the remaining amount of Rs 40 lakh was sent to the account of Servants of India Society by cheque,” the complaint said.
It was shown that the Rs 40 lakh was used for obtaining old documents, stamp duty, documentation, contractor fees, administrative expenses and other expenses, it said.
Looking at the reasons for the use of the said expenses, it seems the said amount was misappropriated for his own benefit, the complaint added.
GIPE was in the news for the past few days after its Chancellor and EAC-PM member Sanjeev Sanyal was first removed by SIS over the institution’s “declining academic standards” and its ‘B’ grade in a recent NAAC accreditation exercise and then reinstated on Saturday.
Incidentally, Sanyal, in a letter to SIS president Damodar Sahoo that he posted on X, had pointed out to “controversies and accusations of financial impropriety at GIPE over the years”.
On his removal as Chancellor, Sanyal had said the poor grade the institute received in the NAAC accreditation reflected the performance of earlier leaders, as it was based on data from the past years when he was not holding the chancellor’s post. PTI COR SPK BNM
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