The city based Sri Balaji Society had to face the worst ever as its Chairman A. Balsubramaniam was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (Anti-corruption Bureau) under the charges of conspiring with some members of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE). He attempted to procure favourable reports to run four management institutes in the city without required infrastructure.
The CBI for cheating the AICTE, Mumbai, has arrested Sandeep Singhal, former regional officer, along with V Venkatramana, dean, School of Management Studies, Hyderabad, and A K Mohanty, Professor, Financial Management, among others.
The Sri Balaji Society president was booked under the sections 420 and sections 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act on Tuesday. He was produced before the additional sessions judge Arvind Rohee and was later sent to remand home till Friday.
As per the CBI reports, it came to the public eye that Balsubramaiam was illegally running Institutes of Management, Balaji Institute of Modern Management, Balaji Institute of International Business, Balaji institute of Telecom Management and Balaji Institute of Management and HRD on the city outskirts. The total number of students pursuing their studies in different institutes of Balaji society is about of 2,000.
“In connivance with AICTE officials, Balasubramnian got approval for these institutes. He was also running Balaji College of Law, Arts, Commerce, Science, and Junior college of Arts, Commerce and Science from the hostel building meant for housing students of the four institutes. He also ran a distance education course in management without approval,” CBI sources said.
The government prosecutors S K Jain and Pratap Pardeshi who represent the CBI, said in a court,
In 2007, the AICTE, New Delhi constituted an expert committee comprising Singhal, Venkatramana and Mohanty to inspect the land and building of Balaji Institute of International Business for approval or otherwise to the institute. It is alleged that Balsubramanian entered into a criminal conspiracy with the expert committee members and other unknown AICTE officials and gave a favorable report knowing fully well the institute did not have the specified land, building, computer lab, and library.
Khan said that Balasubramanian had fallaciously told the AICTE that the institute he was running has their own separate buildings, in reality there was none and the institutes were run in different places. He had informed this to AICTE in March, 2006.
Balaji society ran seven institutes from two buildings and one hostel. The society admitted to excess students in violation of AICTE norms and yet the committee members recommended approval. The management institutes falsely claimed they were autonomous institutes without any such approval from the AICTE or any other government authority and cheated the AICTE and the students
the prosecution stated.
Khan also said that the institute had shown photographs of some biggies from the politicians, army as well as bollywood to lure students for admission in the institutes.
A. Balasubramaniam was associated with Symbiosis before he started his own education institutes in the city.
