Hyderabad: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) conducted searches at 16 locations in Hyderabad, Khammam, Karimnagar and other places across Telangana on money laundering suspicion in connection with the PG medical seat blocking scam.
Earlier in February, based on a complaint filed by the then registrar of the Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS), Matwada police of Warangal lodged an FIR against unknown persons.
ED officials, in their investigation, stated a few agencies are involved in seat blocking in collusion with students/private institutions in Telangana and other states.
It mentioned obtaining relevant documents of candidates required for registration under KNRUHS.
Telangana: ED holds searches at Malla Reddy, Kamineni medical colleges
Investigations revealed the university, during its own inquiries, detected five candidates who had not applied for counselling with the KNRUHS.
On further investigation, it was found that seats were blocked using credentials of high scoring PG NEET candidates from other states. After the counselling and last date of admission, the seats were reported to the university as vacant and such seats were declared as stray vacancies.
The seats were offered to the respective private medical colleges for admission under the management/ institutional quota. The prices ranged between Rs 1 crore and Rs. 2.5 crore, the ED officials informed.
The ED during its investigation found that a penalty was being paid by/on behalf of the seat-blocking candidates out of the premium collected for the sale of the PG Medical seats.
The search operations resulted in the seizure of incriminating documents, digital devices and records of cash transactions running into hundreds of crores.
In addition, unaccounted cash of Rs. 1.4 crore was recovered and seized from the premises of Malla Reddy Institute of Medical Sciences.
During the search, ED also froze Rs. 2.89 crore in a bank account of Malla Reddy Institute of Medical Sciences wherein the cash collected against the medical PG admissions was suspected to be deposited.
Further investigation is under progress.
