The long absconding accused in SC ST scholarship scam, Vivek Sharma has finally surrendered before the court of chief judicial magistrate. The court has sent the accused to judicial custody for 14 days. Sharma was the manager of Institute of Professional Studies in Roorkee when the irregularities were allegedly orchestrated. His brother Ankur Sharma had been arrested by the police in the past.
In this scholarship scam, many managers of colleges are on the radar of the special investigation team (SIT).
Notably, the Institute of Professional Studies under lens of the SIT is the one which was constructed in the year 2005 on the banks of Gang Nehar. It could not run properly but the proprietors of the college allegedly siphoned off the funds received for scholarship from the social welfare department by purportedly submitting a fake list of students. It has been revealed that the Manglaur legislator Qazi Nizamuddin's brother Nooruddin and his partners had closed the institution in the year 2014 due to non accreditation by the education council but scholarship amount was taken despite the closure of the college and its website.
The four officials of social welfare department who had come on the radar of SIT include deputy director and nodal officer Sail Anurag Shankhdhar, the then social welfare officer of Haridwar, Munish Tyagi, social welfare officer, Khanpur, Vinod Kumar Naithani and social welfare officer, Bhagwanpur, Somprakash.
The said college had received the scholarship for the students from the year 2012 to 2015 while students had stopped coming to the college in the year 2011 itself. It is being stated that at one point of time there were only 50 students studying in the college. The SIT probing the scam worth Rs 2.5 crore had arrested five people in the matter including Qazi Nooruddin, Pradip Agarwal, Sanjay Bansal, Ankur Sharma and Om Tyagi. While Nooruddin is the brother of Manglaur MLA, Pradip Agarwal is the son of a reputed businessman from Manglaur and Sanjay Bansal is a resident of Dehradun.