CBI names city officials in edu scam

Hyderabad, Nov. 6: The CBI on Friday named T.N. Shastri, chairman-cum-managing director of Panineeya Sanskrit College Trust and K. Anil Kumar, secretary, Panineeya Institute of Technology and Science in the All India Council for Technical Education scam.

A case of Criminal Conspiracy, Cheating and Prevention of Corruption Act was filed against the two. Cases were also filed against the convenor of the AICTE expert, a professor of the department of civil engineering at the NIT Kurukshetra, an assistant professor of Thapar University in Patiala and a professor of the department of computer science of GKV in Haridwar.

The Panineeya Trust and institute are situated at Dilsukhnagar.

The allegations in the complaint are that the expert committee of the AICTE, after inspecting the premises of the proposed engineering colleges owned by the Panineeya Trust in Hyderabad, on June 25, 2009, recommended setting up of engineering college in four different streams with an intake of 60 students in each stream.

The colleges were recommended though there was a shortfall in the built-up area and not adhering to the AICTE norms.

A criminal breach of trust by a public servant under Section 409 of the IPC was also booked against the officials. On July 16, the CBI had arrested Narayana Rao, member-secretary of AICTE and a middleman for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 5 lakh from the complainant, owner of an AP engineering college.