Bombay High Court directs probe against Bhujbal Knowledge City

The Bombay High Court on Friday directed the Shikshan Shulk Samiti (SSS) to probe into the allegations of inflated expenditure in the balance sheet by Bhujbal Knowledge City — the Nashik campus of Mumbai Education Trust (MET). MET has been co-founded by PWD minister Chhagan Bhujbal and Sunil Karve.

A division bench of chief justice Mohit Shah and MS Sanklecha directed the SSS to complete the investigation into the alleged fraud within two months. The court gave the direction while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by social activist Balasaheb Jambulkar. The PIL alleged that the institute showed inflated expenditure on students in order to get the SSS to approve higher fees.

Anil Anturkar, counsel for Jambulkar, argued that the institute has defrauded students into paying excess fees to the tune of Rs8 crore in just two years since 2010 and fed the government with wrong information.

Srihari Aney, counsel for MET, however, denied the allegations saying that the PIL was a "witch hunt" against them. "It (PIL) is only against one institute of one person. It does not raise a general grievance," said Aney.

Karve, the MET co-founder, is made a respondent in the PIL. However, he is supporting the petitioner and has said that Bhujbal and his family have misappropriated the funds of the institute. Sayaji Nangre, advocate for Karve, argued that the Bhujbals have kept Karve in the dark about the functioning of the institute. Karve had even written a letter in December 2013 to the police commissioner of Nashik alleging that there was misuse of funds and he (Karve) was not aware about the day to day functioning of the institute.

His complaint states that the three institutes at the Nashik campus have been showing inflated expenditures on technology development fund and student activity funds since academic year 2009-10 to the tune of Rs7.88 crore.

Earlier, Karve had even lodged a complaint with Mumbai police commissioner and then filed a petition in the high court seeking action against Bhujbal and his family for misusing MET's property and funds at its Bandra campus. The matter had gone up to the Supreme Court. The apex court asked Karve to file a private complaint before a magistrate.