As the City police failed to file a charge sheet in the seat-blocking scam at Dr B R Ambedkar Medical College (AMC) in Bengaluru, the whistleblower of the case has filed a writ petition before the High Court seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe.
The Central Crime Branch (CCB), which has been probing the scam, had found that a few members of the Trust and a PRO had swindled Rs 51 crore reportedly refunded to the students who withdrew their merit seats in three academic years.
The first complaint was filed at the DJ Halli police station with regard to the irregularities during the period 2011-2014. Since the investigation was going on in connection with similar seat-blocking cases involving COMEDK, the AMC case was also handed over to the CCB in August 2014. The FIR names Amanullah Khan (public relations officer of AMC) as the main accused, and Radhakrishna, son-in-law of former Union minister Mallikarjuna Kharge, as the second accused, along with 14 other founder trustees and associate trustees.
The AMC is run by Ananda Social and Educational Trust. The CCB had found that while other private colleges charged Rs 50-70 lakh for an MBBS seat under the management quota, the AMC accounts showed a mere Rs 4.5 lakh per seat.
A total of 668 students had surrendered merit seats between 2011 and 2014 after getting through the COMEDK entrance test. Seventy-three of them had opted for the AMC before dropping out. The fees they paid to the COMEDK and the college (Rs 2.60 crore) were refunded to them by cheque.
The CCB had found that these cheques, issued in the names of the dropouts, were credited to the account of the AMC principal at the Corporation Bank in RT Nagar and the Indian Bank in Hosur, Tamil Nadu. These uncrossed cheques were realised after forging the students’ signatures. The probe had also found that the students who got seats under the management quota at the AMC had produced fake KRLM (Karnataka Religious and Linguistic Minority) rank cards.
Despite this, there is no progress in the filing of the charge sheet and further probe into the suspicious accounts of the college in regard to the money received after selling seats under management quota.
“Highly influential persons are involved in this case and hence the CCB has failed to probe this without any bias. The CCB has not made any arrest so far in the case. This apart, I had filed another complaint at the DJ Halli police station with regard to a similar seat-blocking scam in the AMC during the academic year 2005-06. The police have not registered an FIR in this case,” Shivalingaswamy, who blew the lid off the scam, said. The writ petition seeking a CBI probe into the case will come up for hearing in the court on Wednesday.
Published 05 October 2015, 20:49 IST