Vigilance court sentences Ex-IAS officer, 4 others in SC welfare fund fraud

A vigilance court here on Saturday sentenced five people, including a former IAS officer to two years in prison for misappropriation of funds granted for welfare of Scheduled Caste students in 2002-03.

The court sentenced former SC development department Director, Rajan, former finance officer, Sreekumar, former district SC development officer, Sathyadevan, former development officer Surendran and owner of an unrecognised computer training centre, Sukumaran.

The court slapped a fine of Rs 1,10,000 each on the first four convicts while a fine of Rs 90,000 was imposed on the fifth convict.

According to vigilance sources, funds sanctioned under a government scheme to impart computer training to students belonging to SC community, were transferred by the officials to a private computer firm, which lacked recognition.

A fund of Rs 10,000 for each student was granted to every recognised training centre under the Special Central Assistance to Scheduled Caste Sub-Plan.

The vigilance charge sheet said that the training centre owner, Sukumaran, conspired with the officials and received Rs 2,32,500 in advance after forging documents suggesting that his centre was recognised to provide training for Hardware and Networking course.