CBI files chargesheet against 20 institutes and 105 individuals

Shimla: The CBI has concluded its investigation in the Himachal Pradesh multi-crore scholarship scam with the filing of chargesheets against 20 institutions and 105 persons, officials said on Friday.

The chargesheets have been filed against the owners of educational institutes, the staff of Directorate of Higher Education, Shimla; bank officials and other private persons involved in the misuse of funds under scholarship and reimbursement scheme of fees launched by the Union government and implemented through the state government to help the students of SC, ST and OBC categories, a statement issued by the CBI said.

The scholarship scam started in 2012-13, when the scholarships for Schedule Caste (SC), Schedule Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Class (OBC) students of the state for pre-matric and post-matric students under 36 schemes were not paid to the eligible students. Eighty per cent of the scholarship money was paid to the private institutions. The scam was unearthed following reports that the students of the government schools in the tribal Spiti valley in Himachal’s Lahaul and Spiti district had not been paid a scholarship for the past five years.

A case was registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the year 2019 on the request of the Himachal Pradesh government against the private educational institutions in Himachal for fake and fraudulent claims of scholarships of about Rs 181 crore during the year 2013 to 2017.