ED busts massive MBBS admission racket- 18,000 students secured seats via fake NRI documents
Fraud
New Delhi- The investigating agency, Enforcement Directorate (ED), has recently busted a racket that used fake documents to get students admitted under the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota in medical colleges.
The Ministry of External Affairs and Indian embassies assisted the investigation. The investigation revealed that private medical colleges admitted about 18,000 students to MBBS courses on the basis of fake documents.
According to a report by NDTV report, during the investigation, it was found that these medical colleges had paid agents to prepare fake documents such as NRI embassy documents and family trees. In most cases, agents and medical colleges used the same documents for multiple candidates.
However, this racket also involved some genuine NRI candidates who were paid by the agents to use their names. Hence, during the raids on these colleges, the ED recovered several fake NRI certificates and stamps of notary officers working in the US. According to the rules, the fees of students admitted through the NRI quota have to be paid by one of their NRI relatives. But ED's investigation found that in most of the cases, the fees were not paid by NRI family members.
Meanwhile, last month, the investigating agency had said that authorities in West Bengal and Odisha did not take any action against the admission of ineligible candidates in some private medical colleges under the NRI quota despite the MEA providing “categorical” information of “forgery”.
On this, Medical Dialogues earlier reported that in a recent development in the ongoing investigation on the NRI quota medical admission fraud, the ED has confiscated FD certificates worth Rs 6.42 crore of a private medical college in the city. Earlier to this, the ED had attached properties worth Rs 12.33 crore of various private medical colleges and individuals. The ED, however, did not name the medical colleges for further investigation purposes.
"Despite categorical information of forgery in cases of certain NRI sponsors provided by the Ministry of External Affairs, no action has been taken by concerned state authorities," the probe agency said.
