CBI to probe fake IIT institute

Human resource development minister Kapil Sibal has ordered a CBI probe into the scam involving top Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur administrators and faculty who ran a fake institute using the IIT campus and brand.

Human resource development minister Kapil Sibal has ordered a CBI probe into the scam involving top Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur administrators and faculty who ran a fake institute using the IIT campus and brand.

HT Image

Sibal ordered the first CBI probe against IIT officials and faculty on Thursday evening, aiming to ensure an impartial and thorough probe into the scam first exposed by HT on October 20, top government sources said.

The CBI will take over the probe from the West Bengal police at a time when over a dozen former and current IIT Kharagpur professors, the current registrar, and — as mentioned in the HT report yesterday — even the new chief vigilance officer are under the scanner.

The chief accused, IIT aerospace engineering professor and seasoned administrator Amit Kumar Ghosh has also been caught in a sting operation by a student, confessing to cheating students and seeking a compromise. Ghosh is out of custody on bail, and has named two former IIT directors — Shishir Dube and Kasturi Lal Chopra — as complicit in the scam, though both have denied the charge.

Students of the fake Institute of Electrical Engineers (IEE) have been demanding a CBI probe, arguing that the complexities of the case — the biggest scam to hit the premier engineering schools — require the attention of the premier investigative agency.

Ghosh ran the IEE using his IIT office and official seal, the police suggest.