Scholarship fraud: College owner, sons on the run

GHAZIABAD: The promoters of a private technical college, which is suspected to have bagged government scholarship worth several crores by listing fictitious students, were declared “absconders” on Sunday.
Police said Rakesh Singhal, the owner of Bhagwati Institute of Technology and Science, and his sons Himanshu and Ayush had been missing ever since they were named in an FIR registered at Masuri police station. The promoters now face the prospect of imminent arrest and their names will figure in the chargesheet. “We have recovered more incriminating evidence from the college premises. Fake scorecards of CAT and MAT examinations have been found in the enterprise resource management system of the college. We have taken printouts of the scorecards,” additional superintendent of police Aparna Gautam said.

On June 20, Ghaziabad police had arrested Sanjeev Kumar, the dean (admissions) of the college, and an official in the registrar’s office, Mohit Kumar. According to police, the admissions department of the college used to provide seats to fictitious students on the basis of fake marksheets and entrance exam scorecards and claim government scholarships. Police have added IPC sections 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) to the FIR that had been registered for fraud and cheating.

“If the investigators compare photographs of students who were reportedly admitted to the college and those that wrote the entrance exams, they will know the difference,” a source said.