The Enforcement Directorate (ED) recently conducted a series of raids on several medical colleges in Telangana in connection with an alleged post-graduate medical seat blocking scam. The raids revealed incriminating documents of cash transactions running into hundreds of crores of rupees linked to collection of fees from post-graduate medical candidates and MBBS students.
The ED officials also seized “unaccounted” cash amounting to Rs 1.4 crore during the raids. The central agency has frozen bank deposits worth Rs 2.89 crore after the raids conducted against Hyderabad’s Malla Reddy Institute of Medical Sciences, as reported by PTI.
According to ED’s official release, the raids were conducted at 16 locations in Hyderabad, Khammam, Karimnagar and other places across the state in a case under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
“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,” read ED’s release.
Telangana’s PG medical seats blocking scam
In February, ED had registered a money-laundering case on the basis of an FIR by the Warangal Police upon receiving a complaint filed by the then registrar of Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS).
The complainant had alleged that seat blocking was going on in collusion with students and private institutions in Telangana and other states.
During their probe into the matter, ED found that KNRUHS had detected five students who revealed that they had not even applied for counselling with the university.
As per ED’s release, the modus operandi involved blocking seats using credentials of high scoring PG-NEET candidates from other states. After the mop-up round of counselling and the last date of admission, these seats were reported to the university as vacant.
Vacant seats were then declared as stray vacancies by the university and given to the respective private medical colleges for admission under the management or institutional quota. These seats were then sold at very high premiums ranging anywhere between Rs 1 crore and Rs 2.5 crore.
(Edited by : Keshav Singh Chundawat)
