File cheating case against SPM trustees: City court

A city court on Wednesday directed the Vishrambaug police to register a cheating case against the trustees of 125-year-old premier educational institute
Shikshan Prasarak Mandali (SPM).

Judicial magistrate (first class) KP Jain-Desarda asked the police to register a case against 19 trustees including Anant Nilkanth Mate, Gangadhar Kashinath Shirude and other officials. He also ordered the police to investigate the case and file a chargesheet against them.

According to the complainant and member of the educational institute Mihir Krushnakant Prabhudesai, the income tax (I-T) department had conducted a raid on SPM’s therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) laboratory in Mumbai on July 21, 2008 and recovered Rs22.12 lakh and documents showing transactions worth over Rs4 crore.

“The seized documents clearly show a fraud committed by trustees and officials of SPM. Even 14 parents in their recorded statements before the charity commissioner had said that they paid capitation fees while seeking admissions for their wards in various Mumbai-based colleges of the institute,” Prabhudesai said.

Subsequently, the Pune I-T commissioner had cancelled the section 80 G rebate on income of the institute and the charity commissioner cancelled its registration in September last year.

Prabhudesai claimed that after the I-T raid, the trustees did not deposit the amount collected as capitation fees into the SPM account and the balance sheet for 2007-08 is yet to be passed in the annual general meeting (AGM). He alleged that they cancelled the AGM to hide details of the illegal transactions.

When contacted, Mate said, “I cannot comment on the issue as I don’t have the court copy. However, I can say that Prabhudesai has raised this issue keeping the ensuing SPM elections in mind. The income tax department is investigating the matter and the picture will be clear soon.”

The SPM runs about 40 colleges and educational institutes in Pune, Mumbai, Solapur and Bangalore including the prestigious Sir Parshurambhau College (SP College) and Nutan Marathi Vidyalaya (NMV) in Pune.