The chairman of a Pharmacy institute has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as part of its ongoing money laundering investigation into an alleged Rs 100-crore scholarship scam in Uttar Pradesh. ED officials informed about the arrest today, Saturday, October 7.
Ram Gopal, Chairman of Jivika Institute of Pharmacy and manager of Dr BR Ambedkar Educational Society, based in Hardoi, was taken into police custody on Friday, October 6. A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Lucknow sent him to ED custody for seven days on Saturday, the federal agency said in a statement, as mentioned in a report by PTI.
"This is the fifth arrest in this case by the ED. The money laundering case stems from an Uttar Pradesh Police FIR," the statement adds.
The ED probe found that managers and trustees of various institutes under Gopal's Society admitted "fake" students to their institutes and applied for scholarships in their names on the government portal with the sole purpose of taking wrongful advantage of government schemes meant for needy students.
"All the formalities in this regard were completed by the institutes through various agents. The scholarship so received was transferred to accounts of colleges and thereafter withdrawn in cash or ultimately transferred to personal accounts of owners/managers/trustees or family members. This resulted in embezzlement of more than Rs 100 crore of government money," the agency alleged. ED has filed a charge sheet in this case and attached assets worth more than Rs 6 crore of the persons accused so far.
The scholarship is provided by Central and state governments to facilitate the education of Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), PH (physically handicapped or specially-abled) students and those belonging to minority communities and economically weaker sections (EWS), as per PTI.
