SHIMLA: After freezing Rs 2.55 Crore in bank accounts, Enforcement Directorate (ED) has apprehended four persons, Raideep Joshan, Krishan Kumar, Hitesh Gandhi, and Arvind Rajta, under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 pertaining to their alleged involvement in the Himachal Pradesh scholarship scam.
The arrested suspects were presented before a specialized court in Shimla on today, where the ED obtained their custody for five days.
Sources close to the investigation revealed that the ED's crackdown extended across various states, including Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, and Delhi.
The extensive raid operation, which took place on August 30th, led to the seizure of crucial documents, digital devices, and a substantial sum of money.
ED seized Rs 75 lakh cash and froze Rs 2.55 crore held in bank accounts and was uncovering the money trail in the case.
As many as 2.38 lakh of students were deprived of the centrally sponsored scheme and the accused the floated fake names of students, opened bank accounts and siphoned money amounting to Rs 200 crore, the sources said.
The alleged Rs 200 Crore scholarship scam had hit the headlines in 2019 during the previous BJP government when an alert teacher posted in Spiti found that the tribal students did not get the scholarship. CBI later verified the addresses of students in Lahaul, Pangi, Bharmour and other places submitted to the KC Group, which were fake, sources said.
The recent arrests mark a significant stride towards curbing financial irregularities in the state education department.
The scholarship was meant for the SC,ST,OBC students of the state. Earlier CBI had arrested seven persons in April 2022 involving various private groups and institutions including Himalayan group of Professional institutes, Kala Amb, ITFT New Chandigarh, Apex Institute, Indri, Karnal, ICL, Ambala, KC Group Una, NIELIT, Sukhvidra Group, Vidya Jyoti Group, in Kharar.
CBI had found that the employees and owners had tempered with the records allegedly to obtain the money meant for the students. The trails were traced to states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Haryana, and Chandigarh.
