Scholarship scam: CBI court sends 3 accused to judicial custody till Jan 8

Three men arrested in connection with the over Rs 220-crore scholarship scam were on Saturday remanded to CBI custody till January 8, an agency spokesperson said. The investigative agency had Friday arrested former superintendent grade-II, Department of Higher Education (dealing with the disbursement of scholarship) Arvind Rajta, vice chairman of KC group of institutions, Hitesh Gandhi and former head cashier at Central Bank of India, SP Singh.

The three accused were produced before the court in Shimla on Saturday which remanded them to CBI custody till Wednesday, the spokesperson told PTI. The agency had argued that their custody was required for interrogation to collect more evidence in the case.

The CBI had registered a case on the Himachal Pradesh government's request and further notification from the Government of India on May 7, 2019, against unknown persons. It was alleged that serious irregularities took place in disbursal of pre-matric and post-matric scholarships of more than Rs 220 crore from 2013-14 to 2016-17 under state and central government-sponsored schemes for SC/ST/OBC/MC students by the Himachal Department of Education.

It was further alleged that the income and caste certificates of the students were not genuine. The CBI had earlier conducted searches at the location of 21 private institutes. In the beginning, the probe was conducted by Himachal police but later it was handed over to the CBI as the scam was found in other states too.