ED Busted Gargantuan MBBS Admission Scam, Candidates Made False NRI Documents

The Enforcement Directorate has busted a gigantic scam for MBBS admissions in which bogus documents were employed to gain admission in medical colleges under the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota.

 

The investigation, with help from the Ministry of External Affairs and Indian missions, discovered that private medical colleges provided around 18,000 seats in the MBBS course to candidates who utilized bogus documents, as per an NDTV report. 

 

The enforcement body discovered in the investigation that the colleges remitted fees to the agents for creating bogus documents, such as embassy documents and bogus family trees.

 

In most instances, the agents and the medical colleges utilized a single set of documents for multiple candidates.

 

The racket also included some real NRI students whose names were used by the agents after offering them money.

 

The ED raided such colleges and seized a number of fake NRI certificates and notary officer stamps employed in the US.

 

According to the norms, the admission fees for the NRI quota have to be remitted by an NRI relative. But ED discovered during its investigation that the fees in the majority of cases were not remitted by the NRI relatives.

 

The ED last month stated that the governments in West Bengal and Odisha failed to act against the admission of ineligible students in some private medical colleges under the NRI quota even after the MEA furnished "categorical" details of "forgery".

 

It had confiscated "incriminating" material in this case during raids in the past, it further added.

 

The ED informed that a fixed deposit of Rs 6.42 crore of a West Bengal-based private college was provisionally attached. Previously, the enforcement agency attached assets of some colleges and individuals concerned in these suspected irregularities worth Rs 12.33 crore.

 

"Though there is categorical information of forgery in instances of some NRI sponsors furnished by the Ministry of External Affairs, no action has been taken by concerned state governments," the investigation agency said.