Siliguri, March 14.TT: Police have filed chargesheets against North Bengal University registrar Dilip Sarkar and former vice-chancellor P.K. Saha in a Siliguri court for allegedly embezzling funds.
The names of four persons connected with a printing press in Calcutta also figure in the chargesheet filed in the additional chief judicial magistrate’s court on Monday.
“The six face charges under Sections 409 and 120B of the IPC,” Anand Kumar, the Darjeeling superintendent of police, told The Telegraph.
Legal experts have said Section 409 is non-bailable and amounts to “breach of trust”. Section 120B is bailable and deals with “criminal conspiracy”.
The state higher education department, in consultation with governor M.K. Narayanan, had given consent to the police’s request to issue chargesheets against Saha and Sarkar under the two sections.
The duo have also been charged under Sections 13 (1) (c and d) and 13 (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act 1988.
Vice-chancellor Arunabha Basumajumdar had filed an FIR against Sarkar on March 30, 2010, accusing the latter of misappropriating funds from the university’s confidential account (opened for examination-related work like printing of question papers).
The VC said the funds had been siphoned off from the account when Sarkar was the controller of examinations from 2000 to 20007. Sarkar was suspended on March 30, 2010, when he was the registrar.
Although Basumajumdar had mentioned only Sarkar’s name in the FIR, the police found the involvement of Saha and the four press officials also in the scam. Saha had served as the VC for seven years before retiring on December 31, 2007.
“The account was opened in 2000 and from then till 2007, it was managed solely by the controller of examinations and remained beyond the financial audit of the university. The NBU authorities arbitrarily overpaid the printing press for doing examination-related works and caused loss to the institution,” said an NBU source.
The executive council of the NBU had recently decided to give its nod to issue the chargesheet against Saha and Sarkar under the two sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act. But the EC has referred the charges to the governor, as he is the appointing authority of the VCs.
Although the governor’s permission is yet to come, the police pressed the charges, citing a Supreme Court verdict. “The ruling allows police to file chargesheet on their own if they do not get sanction from the appointing authority in four months,” said a lawyer.
The police had approached the EC a year back.
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