New Delhi: The CBI claims to have unearthed discrepancies in the disbursal of the Centre’s flagship scholarships for students with disabilities, alleging Rs 11.41 crore was sanctioned to non-existent students or to fictitious or non-functional educational institutions.
In an FIR lodged Wednesday, the agency further alleged that these disability scholarship funds were disbursed to 926 applicants for post-matric scholarships through 28 institutes during the financial year 2022-23.
According to the CBI, 18 of the 28 institutes were found to have claimed scholarship sums despite not being registered on the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) or not having students with disabilities for the scholarships.
The agency also allegedly found that two colleges—in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua and Madhya Pradesh’s Shajapur—were already closed before the disbursal of the scholarship funds in 2022-23.
The agency also said that it found 11 educational institutions that were unaware of any such government scholarship scheme, even as funds were disbursed in their names.
The agency booked unnamed public servants, nodal officers of the scholarship in the states, as well as nodal officers of the institutions under multiple provisions on Wednesday.
They included Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable securities, wills, or authorities), 468 (forgery committed specifically for the purpose of cheating), and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code.
They were also booked under Section 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000, that deals with offences amounting to cheating by personation by using computer resource, and the Prevention of Corruption Act, 2018.
The criminal case stems from the central agency’s preliminary enquiry into a complaint by the then Social Justice and Empowerment Secretary, Rajesh Aggrawal, in December 2023.
In the complaint, the CBI was handed a list of 830 institutes suspected of being involved in the illegal disbursal and recoupment of scholarship funds meant for students with disabilities.
These scholarships were meant for students with disabilities in classes XI and XII, or those pursuing post-matriculation diploma or certificate courses from any university recognised by the University Grants Commission or the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
“During the course of enquiry, the ministry has provided a list of 926 students related to 28 institutes to whom scholarship to the tune of Rs 11.41crore has been paid to these beneficiaries,” a CBI officer, who conducted the preliminary enquiry, documented in the FIR.
The CBI officer further documented that the institutes whose names were provided by the ministry as beneficiaries were asked for details related to the admission and education of the students whose names were used by them to claim scholarships.
“Enquiry revealed that some of the Institutes were non-existent or were closed but the scholarships in the name of handicapped students were claimed/disbursed in connivance with fake Institute Nodal Officers (INOs),” the officer documented.
In some of the cases, the agency’s investigating officer documented that while the institutions on the list of beneficiaries list were genuine, they were never aware of the scholarship. They raised suspicions that scholarships were withdrawn by creating fake user IDs on the NSP portal.
“Some of the institutes were not aware about Post Matric Scholarship sponsored by Ministry of Social Justice, Govt. of India, but scholarship amount were claimed/disbursed in the name of the students of these institutions.”
This is not the only flagship central scholarship scheme under a fraud cloud. Three years after the government froze its minority scholarships over alleged fraud involving fake schools, ghost beneficiaries and siphoned funds, a parliamentary standing committee last week tabled a report in both Houses calling the situation an “injustice to minority students for no fault of theirs”.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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