On September 28, 2022, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) detained a senior official of the Maharashtra government's Directorate of Technical Education, a woman professor and two others for taking bribes to admit a student to an Architecture college in Thane district, officials said, as stated in a report by PTI.
Giving more details, the officials said that the ACB officials recovered Rs 3,15,000 cash from those detained, which they had collected from 11 students, including the complainant, in this case.
Talking about this, Deputy Superintendent of Police (Thane ACB) Ashwini Patil said in a release that the process of registering an offence against the four at the Mira Road police station under the Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar police commissionerate was underway.
The four detained were: Jitendra Ramdasji Nikhade (54) Assistant Director of the Technical and Joint Director Divisional Officer at Bandra; Rupali Hitendra Gupte (50), professor at K L Tiwari College of Architecture located at Mira Bhayandar; Santosh Rangrai Hubale, (45), office superintendent of the college and Shreya Santosh Bane (46), senior clerk.
Further, giving more details on how the officials were caught, the ACB said, the complainant's daughter was pursuing a course in an architecture college, which shut down. In order to get admission to KL Tiwari College and also to grant the change of subject, the principal of the college demanded Rs 30,000.
Further, the complainant was asked by Professor Gupte to hand over money to the Superintendent's office. But when the complainant met Hubale, he further made a demand of Rs 30,000 to be given to the Joint Director of Technical Education. Following this, the complainant reached out to the Thane unit of the ACB, the ACB informed.
Meanwhile, based on the complaint, the anti-graft agency laid a trap at the college office on Wednesday and caught Bane accepting Rs 15,000 from the complainant on behalf of the superintendent and the professor, it said.
Moreover, it was found during the inquiry and raid that the accused had demanded Rs 30,000 from 14 students. Now, further investigation is on, said the ACB.
