Post Matric scholarship scam: ED attaches properties worth over Rs 4 crore
New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached immovable properties worth Rs 4.83 crore under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with the Post Matric Scholarship scam case, an official said on Tuesday.
According to officials, the attached properties are in the form of a college building of Dr. Om Prakash Gupta Institute of Management and Technology, Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh.
The financial probe agency had initiated the probe on the basis of intelligence input and FIR registered by Uttar Pradesh Police in a scholarship scam against the accused persons.
“ED investigation revealed that settlers, managers and trustees of certain trust/ college showed fake enrollment in the names of fictitious students in their institutes for namesake and applied for scholarships in their names on the government portal. All the formalities and paper work in this regard were done by managers/employees of the colleges themselves,” the probe agency said in a statement on Tuesday.
Earlier, Shivam Gupta, Chairman and key managing person of Dr Om Prakash Institute of Management and Technology was arrested by ED at Lucknow Airport on April 1 while trying to fly to Dubai.
“Till date, six persons have been arrested in the case. Besides, four ‘provisional attachment order’ attaching immovable and movable properties worth Rs 15.6 crore in the name of managers and trustees of the various colleges have already been issued.
“One prosecution complaint and two supplementary prosecution complaints in the case have already been filed against five accused persons before the Special PMLA Court,” it said.
Previously, during the search in the month of February last year, cash and bank balance worth Rs 93 lakh belonging to Dr. Om Prakash Institute of Management and Technology was frozen/ attached under the provisions of PMLA, 2002.
Total accumulated amount of attachments in the case so far stands at Rs 20.43 crore.