ED arrests UP institute chairman in scholarship ‘scam’ case

PTI, Mar 3, 2024, 8:23 AM IST

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New Delhi: The ED on Saturday said it has arrested the chairman of a Uttar Pradesh-based management and technology institute from the Lucknow airport in a money laundering probe linked to an alleged Rs 100 crore post-matric scholarship scam.

Shivam Gupta, chairman of Dr Om Prakash Institute of Management and Technology and three other group colleges and schools, was taken into custody on Friday under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the Enforcement Directorate said in a statement.

A lookout circular (LOC) was issued against Gupta as he was not joining the investigation despite multiple summons being issued against him, it said.

He was arrested from the Lucknow airport while on the way to catch a flight to Dubai. A special PMLA court in Lucknow sent him to ED custody for 7 days, it said.

‘Shivam Gupta was actively involved in fraudulently availing the scholarship in the name of ineligible students,’ the ED claimed.

This is the sixth arrest in this case by the ED. The PMLA case was filed after the agency studied UP Police FIRs registered against the accused.

‘Managers and trustees of various institutes got fake students admitted to their institutes for namesake and applied for scholarship in their names on the government portal with the sole purpose of wrongful advantage of government schemes which were meant for needy students,’ the ED said.

‘All the formalities in this regard were done by the institutes themselves through various agents,’ it said.

The scholarship so received was transferred to the accounts of colleges and thereafter withdrawn in cash or ultimately transferred to personal accounts of owners, managers and trustees or family members, thus, their actions resulted in ’embezzlement’ of more than Rs 100 crore of government money, it said.

Three charge sheets have been filed in this case till now apart from the attachment of assets worth Rs 10.35 crore.