New Delhi: In the wake of fresh information provided by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the 2019 Himachal Pradesh scholarship scam, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has decided to reopen its cases against at least two universities, ThePrint has learnt.
The agency, earlier in January this year, arrested its Deputy Superintendent of Police-rank officer, who was the investigating officer in the case and gave those two universities clean chits in his closure report.
After a five-year probe into the scam, the CBI charged 20 institutes in March 2024 for allegedly diverting funds in the name of scholarships to students from Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes.
Of the 20 institutes, APG University in Shimla and Bahra University in Solan district were given clean chits by CBI’s DSP Balbir Singh.
However, the CBI has now arrested Singh and reopened the cases against the universities.
The latest development came after the ED, as part of its investigation into the scam, shared with the CBI the details of withdrawals made by the two institutes, and statements of students under whose names an overall amount of roughly Rs 70 lakh was siphoned off.
The ED is empowered to share the findings of its investigation with the CBI, which primarily investigated the offence. The CBI case was the basis of the ED’s proceedings against the accused under Section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
Following a request of the then-state government in Himachal Pradesh, the CBI, in May 2019, registered the scholarship scam case that the state police initiated on allegations of syphoning of over Rs 200 crore.
The agency charged 20 institutes and 105 persons and arrested 19 accused. They include employees in the directorate of higher education, chairman/vice-chairman or director/employee of educational institutes, and officials of one bank that diverted Rs 181 crore from 2013 to 2017 as part of the scholarship scam.
How CBI caught its officer
Accused in the CBI and ED cases—Rajnish Bansal and Bhupinder Sharma—earlier in December last year alleged that Vishal Deep, the ED’s investigating officer in the case, demanded bribes from them, leading to his arrest on 10 January.
As ThePrint earlier reported, the FIRs registered by CBI based on the duo’s allegations showed that Rajnish Bansal and Bhupinder Sharma alleged that Vishal Deep and his subordinates demanded Rs 1.15 crore for not implicating them in the scam.
Days after Vishal Deep’s arrest, the CBI, on 20 January, arrested its DSP Balbir Singh when he appeared for questioning at the Chandigarh office of its Anti Corruption Branch. Vishal Deep named Balbir Singh in the case.
In Balbir Singh’s remand application before the Special CBI court in Chandigarh, the CBI said he “mediated the meeting between accused Bhupinder Sharma and accused Vishal Deep in Hotel Lalit on 14 December 2024 and negotiated the bribe amount of Rs 55 lakh”.
The meeting, which allegedly took place at Hotel Lalit on 14 December 2024, was arranged by Balbir Singh because Bhupinder Sharma knew him as the IO of the CBI case. The CBI added: “CDR analysis of Balbir Singh’s mobile also substantiates his presence at Hotel Lalit on the said date.”
The CBI alleged that they seized two “incriminating” recordings from Balbir Singh, confirming his calls with Bhupinder Sharma right before the latter’s bribe was delivered near Chandigarh’s Zirakpur area and with Rajnish Bansal right before Bansal’s consignment of the bribe was delivered, according to the trap proceedings.
According to the CBI, the recording of the calls revealed Balbir Singh telling Bhupinder Sharma that he should not have insisted on talking to Vishal Deep—something he had done earlier—before handing over the bribe to the mediator sent to collect the money, and Sharma informing the officer that he was giving the ‘samaan (bribe)’ to the mediator.
To match the recorded voices, the agency moved applications to seek voice samples from Vishaldeep and Balbir during the trap proceedings on 22 December 2024. The Special CBI court approved its request this Monday.
Advocate Pawan Dogra, who represented Singh before the court, alleged that his client has been falsely implicated in the case. “Neither he demanded any bribe nor has he accepted any bribe. He has been falsely implicated in the case,” Dogra told ThePrint.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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