HYDERABAD: A special court here will pronounce the verdict in the scholarship scam busted five years ago involving alleged misappropriation of funds amounting to Rs. 50 crore.

The scam came to light in March 2002 when Social Welfare Department deputy director Shambhavi lodged a complaint with the Jubilee Hills police stating that two cheques were issued towards scholarships for students in the name of D.V.R. College, which did not exist.

The case was first transferred to Humayunnagar police station on point of jurisdiction and then to the Hyderabad Detective Department three months later since the higher-ups felt there was more to the scam than what met the eye.

What was thought to be a typical fraud soon turned out to be embezzlement of funds to the tune of crores. The DD officials identified 43 accused persons and `suo moto' registered two more cases connected to the scam.

Chargesheet

In the chargesheet of the first case, they stated that R. Mothya Naik, warden in Social Welfare Department and D. Shankar Rao, accountant in Hyderabad district social welfare office, misappropriated Rs. 23.5 crores by withdrawing scholarship amounts in the names of non-existent colleges and students.

The second case was registered against Mr. Naik on charge of misappropriating money by flouting eight bogus schools adopting a similar modus operandi. The third case was against, K.V.L. Jayasimha, an advocate, who was charged with floating 13 fake colleges.

Even as a departmental inquiry was launched since the role of employees of the Social Welfare Department and pay and accounts office came to fore, the Government constituted a special court with T. Bhaktavatsalam as the judge and A. Kedareswara Rao as special public prosecutor to try the case. DD Inspector S. Sharath Kumar investigated the case.

An interesting development in the case was that the complainant Shambhavi, also turned out to be one of the accused persons during the course of investigation. Out of the 44 accused persons, Shambhavi and Deputy Pay and Accounts Officer M.B.V. Ramana Rao died during trial of the case. Police could not trace two accused persons. Since some accused persons bought properties in the names of their children, a separate chargesheet was filed in juvenile court with respect five minors.

Seizures

The investigators seized five houses, 18 flats, 12 commercial buildings, and 287 acres of agricultural land at Rechintal in Medak district, six cars, gold jewellery and cash belonging to the accused persons.

Nearly two lakh various documents like cheques and bills were collected and over 300 witnesses were cited.

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