ED attaches deposits of Telangana medical colleges in PG seats 'fraud' case

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday said it has attached assets worth more than Rs 5 crore of some private medical colleges in Telangana as part of a money laundering investigation into allegations of illegal blocking of PG seats by these institutions.

A provisional order was issued by the central agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) to attach Rs 3.33 crore worth bank deposits of Chalmeda Ananda Rao Institute of Medical Sciences and Rs 2.01 crore deposits of MNR Medical College, the central agency said in a statement.

The total value of attachment is Rs 5.34 crore.

The ED had earlier seized "unaccounted" Rs 1.47 crore cash of Malla Reddy Institute of Medical Sciences and had also frozen bank deposits of Rs 2.89 crore.

So far, it said, the total value of the seized, frozen and attached assets in this case stands at Rs 9.71 crore.

The money laundering case stems from a state police FIR filed at the Matwada police station in Warangal district. This case was filed on the complaint of the Registrar of the state-run Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS), alleging that candidature of certain students with high NEET PG ranks were being used to block seats for PG Medical admissions under the management quota.

In response to warning of legal action given by KNRUHS to such suspected seat blockers, some candidates claimed they had not applied for registration under the management quota at KNRUHS, the ED said.

The probe found that some private medical colleges, in "active collusion" with consultants and middlemen, were engaged in "seat blocking" using the certificates and documents of high-ranking students, the agency said.

The blocked seats would be retained until the mop-up round (last phase of counselling) and later the students were shown as exited and the penalty imposed by the University for exit at the last stage was paid, the ED claimed.

These penalty amount was "arranged" for by the private medical colleges and were paid either directly through the college's bank accounts or through middlemen. Such seats, shown as vacated, would be intimated by the colleges to the University and would be declared as "stray" vacancies, it said.

The stray vacancies were then released by the KNRUHS to the respective colleges to be filled up on their own (akin to institutional quota seats) and the fees charged for such stray vacancies could be upto "three times" that of the regular fees for management quota category called MQ1.

The private medical colleges were charging additional fee up to three times and, in some cases, were also collecting "capitation" fee in the form of cash over and above the "inflated" fee, the agency found.

The excess fees and capitation fee so collected by the colleges over and above the regular management quota category fees against deliberately blocked seats are the "proceeds of crime" in this case, it said.