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Raids reveal medical seat sale scam in Telangana, says ED
The ED recovered unaccounted cash of ₹1.4 crore from the premises of a private medical college on the outskirts of Hyderabad. It also froze ₹2.89 crore in a bank account of the same college
Hyderabad
A series of raids conducted by the Enforcement Directorate on various medical colleges in Telangana in the last two days revealed records of cash transactions running into hundreds of crores of rupees related to collection of fees and premium from post-graduate medical students and MBBS students, an official release from the agency said on Thursday.
According to the release, the ED conducted searches at 16 locations in Hyderabad, Khammam, Karimnagar and other places across Telangana under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with the alleged post-graduate medical seat blocking scam.
“The search operations resulted in seizure of incriminating documents, digital devices and records of cash transactions running into hundreds of crores of rupees relating to collection of cash fees and premium from PG medical candidates as well as MBBS students,” the release said.
In February 2023, the ED had recorded a case of money laundering on the basis of an FIR registered by the Matwada Police, Warangal upon a complaint filed by the then registrar of the Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS).
According to the complaint, some agencies were involved in seat blocking in collusion with students and private institutions in Telangana and other states and in obtaining relevant documents of candidates required for registration under KNRUHS.
Investigation by ED revealed that the university, during its own inquiries, detected five candidates who informed that they had not even applied for counselling with the KNRUHS.
During the further probe, the ED found that seats were blocked using credentials of high scoring PG NEET candidates from other states and after the mop-up round of counselling and the last date of admission, the seats were reported to the university as vacant.
“Such vacant seats were declared as stray vacancies by the university and given to the respective private medical colleges for admission under the management and institutional quota. These seats were then sold off at exorbitant premiums ranging anywhere between ₹1 crore and ₹2.5 crore,” the release said.
In order to curb the menace of seat blocking, the university had provisioned a penalty on the defaulting candidates. However, ED investigation revealed that the penalty was being paid by the college managements themselves on behalf of the seat blocking candidates, out of the premium collected from them for sale of the PG medical seats.
During the searches, the ED recovered unaccounted cash of ₹1.4 crore from the premises of a private medical college on the outskirts of Hyderabad. It also froze ₹2.89 crore in a bank account of the same college, wherein the cash collected against the medical PG admissions was suspected to be deposited.
Further investigation in the matter is under progress, the ED release said.
