In a recent development, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached a piece of land and a building of an educational trust worth Rs. 5.62 crore in Uttarakhand's Haridwar under anti-money laundering law. The probe was launched to investigate an alleged scholarship scam in the state.
The assets belong to the Seth Bimal Prasad Jain educational trust which runs the Phonics Group of Institutions in Roorkee. The federal agency alleged that the Phonics Group of Institutions "fraudulently" received a significant amount of scholarship in the name of SC/ST students from the social welfare department, Haridwar, for the period 2011-12 to 2014-2015.
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The ED further alleged that the institution made false claims to obtain this scholarship amount, which was embezzled and siphoned off by the Phonics Group of institutions, causing a huge financial loss to the public exchequer with wrongful gain to themselves. This money was further diverted to either the bank accounts of the educational trust or to other accounts of the college and was utilized for the expenses of the trust and "withdrawn in cash".
Earlier, the ED had attached property worth Rs1.45 crore belonging to Wali Gram Udhyog Vikas Sansthan, Roorkee, which runs Techword Wali Gram Udhyog Vikas Sansthan group of institutions in the same case. The money laundering case of the ED stems from an FIR filed in this case by the Uttarakhand Police.