Case filed against ex Tribal Affairs director, others in post-matric scholarship scam

ACB Jammu registered a case against a former director Tribal Affairs and others over allegations of gross violation of guidelines and releasing of crores of rupees to un-recognised institutes for un-recognised courses while implementing post matric scholarship scheme entitled for ST candidates.

According to a statement, issue to news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), the FIR No. 09/2025 u/s 5(1)(c) (d) r/w section 5(2) of J&K PC Act, Svt. 2006 & section 120-B RPC at P/S ACB Jammu was filed against M S Choudhary, then Director Tribal Affairs J&K, Shanaz Akhtar Malik, Catalog Computers, Auquaf Complex Jammu, Humera Banu & Firdous Ahmed, Chirag Institute of IT. Channi Himmat, Jammu, Sham Lal Targotra, JKS Industrial Training institute (ITI), Jindar Mehlu, R.S Pura, Jaffer Hussain Wani, Ever Green Institute of Computer Technology, Shastri Nagar Jammu, Parshotam Bharadwaj. Global Institute of IT, Janipur Jammu, Ramneek Kour, Pankaj Memorial Charitable Trust for Education and Research, Rajpura Subash Nagar, Puneet Mahajan, Supertech (India) Computer Education, Talab Tillo and others.

The statement reads that during the course of verification, it was revealed that the GOI launched post matric scholarship scheme to ST candidates to complete their education by way of providing financial assistance in the shape of scholarship amounting Rs 18,000 per student plus Rs 2300 maintenance allowance.

"The objective behind PMS scheme was to provide financial assistance to ST students studying at post matriculation or post-secondary stage to enable them to complete their education and reimbursement of compulsory fee to students charged by recognized Institute. The private institutes situated in Jammu managed documents of ST students of far-flung areas and submit same to the office of Directorate of Tribal Affairs, but the officers of Tribal Affairs Department without checking the genuineness of institutes as well as infrastructure/course contents provided by institutes, even without ensuring the end use of scholarship amount, disbursed the scholarship fee worth crores during 2014 to 2018 directly in the bank accounts of these Institutes," it reads.

It added that the verification further reveals that the students against whom payment released neither sought admission nor attended the free computer course.

""Some of students though sought admission under the scheme but never attended or partially attended the computer course. However, the benefit in the shape of full tuition fee was credited to the accounts of different computer institutions. Furthermore, one of the institutes, in order to increase the strength, managed the documents of ST students of far-flung areas and filled scholarship forms on their names."

It further reads that some fake bank accounts were opened for ST students without their consent and knowledge, as it was mandatory to fill account number in the form for crediting maintenance allowance directly in the accounts of students.  

"Even few institutes were not having proper accreditation with NIELIT, but the fees were disbursed accordingly. By acting in this manner, the officers of Directorate of Tribal Affairs Department, by sheer abuse of their official positions and in criminal conspiracy with owners of Institutes/beneficiaries, by way of manipulating records as well as violating guidelines of Post-Matric Scholarship Scheme, misappropriated huge amount of Government funds worth crores during the year 2014 to 2018, as a result of which a huge loss has been caused to the Government exchequer. Further investigation in the case is going on," it added—(KNO)