Trust chairman collected ₹65.70 cr from 350 medical aspirants: ED

The charge sheet or the prosecution complaint filed by ED before the special PMLA court stated that the college, Institute of Medical Science and Research, did not have permission to admit students

Mumbai The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has claimed in its charge sheet filed against Mahadev Deshmukh, that the former president of charitable trust Shri Chhatrapati Shivaji Education Society, had collected around ₹65.70 crore from 350 students for admission to MBBS courses conducted by a medical college run by the trust in Satara district when the medical college had no permission to admit students.

ED claimed that the Admissions Regulatory Authority had refused to renew permission to the medical college to admit students for MBBS course for want of infrastructure (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The charge sheet or the prosecution complaint filed by ED before the special PMLA court stated that the college, Institute of Medical Science and Research, did not have permission from the Medical Council of India to admit students for the MBBS course when Deshmukh collected money from the 350 students.

ED claimed that the Admissions Regulatory Authority had refused to renew permission to the medical college to admit students for MBBS course for want of infrastructure. Even when the permission was denied for the academic year 2014-15, Deshmukh took money from students by promising them admissions in future – in academic years 2015-16 and 2016-17, the agency claimed.

“From 2011 to 2016, Deshmukh in collusion with other accused persons cheated around 350 gullible students and collected ₹65.70 crore (approx.) from them in the guise of offering admission…despite knowing well that the society did not have permission from Medical Council of India as well as the Maharashtra University of Health Science,” the charge-sheet added.

Arun Gore, who became a director of the Society in 2019, in his statement claimed, “When the new board took over, around 750 students had approached them claiming that the previous board members had collected cash assuring admission.”

Deshmukh in his statement admitted that the college with the 350-bed hospital was permitted to take admission for the year 2012-13. The permission was to be renewed every year, but Deshmukh said it was not renewed from the year 2014-15.

The trust had already taken admission of 95 students but in wake of denial of the permission to run the college, the admission was not even regularised by the Admissions Regulatory Authority and Maharashtra University of Health Sciences. Instead, Deshmukh claimed that they were asked to pay ₹20 lakh per student.