Two months after former IIT Roorkee employee Manipal Sharma alleged financial fraud of around Rs 1.05 crore, the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate court of Roorkee has reportedly ordered the police to file an FIR against the director of the institute and four others. Sharma had alleged that the officials had siphoned off the amount from grants and scholarships over a decade. The local police are yet to file a case.
The court passed the order on Wednesday which reached the police on Thursday but they are yet to take any action and told the media that they are examining the order. Sharma had alleged that IIT director Dr Ajit Kumar Chaturvedi, Dr Manish Shrikhande, dean of the Sponsored Research & Industrial Consultancy (SRIC), Jitendra Dimri, assistant registrar of the SRIC, Dhiraj Upadhyay, assistant and Rajesh Kumar, a clerk of the same department, had siphoned off the money of grants and other aids to their own bank accounts. He had also told the media that he tried to raise the issue with the authorities just before his retirement in July this year, but no one listened to him.
But the institute has a somewhat different story to tell. In a statement, the IIT said that they had filed a complaint with the police as early June 18, 2020, about the incident of a Senior Assistant in its SRIC office using fraudulent means to siphon funds into his personal bank account. They also added that the institute was not a party in the court case based on the same incident, which has been reported in the media. "This fraud in the SRIC office was detected and reported by Dean SRIC and Assistant Registrar (SRIC). The concerned staff member was suspended and a committee was constituted to look into the entire matter. The concerned staff member admitted that he fraudulently siphoned Rs 1,05,35,753 into his personal account. After the completion of disciplinary proceedings, the concerned staff member has been removed from the services of the institute and the institute is using all legal means available to recover from him the entire amount, along with applicable interest," said the statement. "Following up on the police complaint, the institute lodged an FIR on December 11. The matter is already being investigated by the police who have already recorded the statement of the Registrar. The institute will continue to extend full cooperation to the police," it added.
