Harsimrat Kaur Badal requests Social Justice Minister to recommend CBI inquiry into SC Scholarship scam
Union food processing industries minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal requested Union social justice and empowerment minister Thawar Chand Gehlot to recommend a CBI inquiry into the Rs 63 crore SC scholarship scam engineered by Punjab Scheduled Caste and Backward Classes minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot.
In a letter to Thawar Gehlot, Harsimrat Kaur said a CBI inquiry was necessary to recover the funds which had been embezzled at the instance of the Minister so that they could be disbursed to the genuine beneficiaries. She also requested that since the Congress government had clearly failed to distribute the SC scholarship funds in a bonafide manner to the beneficiaries, the centre may take over this responsibility pending an inquiry into the case.
Harsimrat Badal while requesting the Social Justice and Empowerment minister to forward the case to the Home ministry for the institution of a CBI inquiry, said aside from the criminal offense the scam amounted to committing an atrocity against the scheduled caste community of Punjab. She said the scamsters were also playing with the future of Dalit students of the state.
“Moreover the issue has widespread ramifications and the scope of the scam could be much more than what has been revealed in the inquiry report”.
She also said that minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot had been indicted his own Principal Secretary, who was an officer in the rank of Additional chief secretary, of presiding over a Rs 63.91 crore scam.
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She said as per the report Rs 39 crore was misappropriated as there was no official record of the same. She said the minister was also accused of disbursing Rs 24 crore to private educational institutions against whom the government had ordered recoveries.
-PTC News
