SHIMLA: In the Rs 210 crore scholarship scam of Himachal Pradesh , Shimla police on Saturday registered first case FIR under the provisions of cheating, forgery, forgery of records and using forged documents as genuine against two prominent private educational institutions from Karnataka and Punjab. It has been alleged in the complaint that these institutes usurped scholarships of 250 students from Kangra district State project officer (SPM & NIU), Shakti Bhushan, in his complaint alleged that the secretary (education department), Himachal Pradesh, had appointed him for the enquiry of allotment of scholarships and that during the enquiry, he found that 250 students of Kangra district had taken admission in Fathepur and Vadukhar centres of two private universities from Karnataka and Punjab.He said that at the time of filling of forms, the management of above universities declared to provide scholarships to the students of SC/ST category, which was supposedly transferred to their Aadhaar-linked account. But the above institutes had not given any kind of scholarship to the students and money was found deposited in another fake account opened by misusing the Aadhaar card of students instead of student’s actual accounts.Based on his complaint, a case has been registered at Shimla East police station under sections 419 (cheating by personation), 465 (forgery), 466 (forgery of record of court or of public register) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of IPC.During previous regime, the state had witnessed multi crore scam in the distribution of scholarships to SC/ST and OBC students. During the departmental probe it had come to light that around 70% institutions availing the scholarship benefits were from outside the state.State government has already decided to hand over the probe to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Sources said that following the registration of FIR by police, files related to the scam would be handed over to home department, which would in turn hand over the file to CBI for probe.Sources said that CBI would then register FIR at CBI police station Shimla and that around a dozen FIRs are likely to be registered.Chief minister Jai Ram Thakur led BJP government on August 21 this year had taken the decision to hand over the investigation to CBI. This decision was taken after many irregularities came to light during the meeting held to review the scholarship distribution during previous Congress regime.It was found that some institutions unexpectedly had large number of students enrolled and preliminary inquiry conducted revealed that different institutions of state and Centre were involved in this. As large number of institutions were located outside the state, the state government took the decision to conduct detailed probe to bring out the truth.

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