Uttarakhand: ED Attaches Education Trusts’ Rs 5.62 Cr Asset In SC/ST Scholarship ‘Scam’

A piece of land and the building of an educational trust worth Rs 5.62 crore in Uttarakhand’s Haridwar town have been attached under the anti-money laundering law as part of a probe into an alleged SC/ST scholarship scam in the state, the Enforcement Directorate said Saturday.

The assets belong to the Seth Bimal Prasad Jain educational trust which runs the Phonics Group of Institutions in Roorkee, the federal agency said in a statement.

It alleged that the Phonics Group of Institutions “fraudulently” received a huge amount of scholarship in the name of SC/ST students from the social welfare department, Haridwar, for the period 2011-12 to 2014-2015.

“The institution made false claims to obtain this scholarship amount which was embezzled and siphoned off by the Phonics Group of institutions, Roorkee, run by Seth Bimal Prasad Jain Educational Trust, through its trustees and caused huge financial loss to the public exchequer with wrongful gain to themselves,” the Enforcement Directorate said.

This money was further diverted to either the bank accounts of the educational trust or to other accounts of the college and was utilised for the expenses of the trust and “withdrawn in cash”, it alleged.

The money laundering case of the ED stems from an FIR filed in this case by the Uttarakhand Police.

Earlier, the ED had attached property worth Rs1.45 crore (land situated in Haridwar) belonging to Wali Gram Udhyog Vikas Sansthan, Roorkee which runs Techword Wali Gram Udhyog Vikas Sansthan group of institutions in the same case, it said.

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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)