Salem,August12: Raids by the Income Tax (IT) Department’s Vigilance wing continued for the second day on Thursday at the Vinayaka Missions Deemed University.
The inquiry, under Section 3 of UGC Act 1956, is based on hints pointing to collection of capitation fee and tuition fee in excess of the government norms at the medical, dental and engineering colleges.
Simultaneous raids have been conducted at the institution’s colleges at Chennai, Puducherry, Karaikkal, Manipur and Sikkim.
According to the sleuths, permission has been sought to investigate the medical college in Malaysia run by Vinayaka Missions, while legal impediments did not allow investigations at institutions run in the Middle East and USA.
A 100-member team that conducted the search in the constituent colleges of the university, have found incriminating documents. But the result of their inquiry has not been disclosed.
Vinayaka Missions’ ownership is closely held by the founder Chancellor’s two sons, two daughters and their spouses. IT sleuths said the institution collected up to Rs 40 lakh as fee for MBBS and up to Rs 5 lakh for BE and B Tech without allegedly issuing proper receipts. There were allegations that black money was being diverted into the private kitty of the closely held institution bypassing the IT scanner.
The raids were carried out on the basis of complaints received from various quarters, including one filed after an anti-capitation fee inquiry held by the Directorate Medical Education one-and-a-half months ago at the Vinayaka Missions Medical College in Salem.
In the preliminary rounds, the investigators checked the admission list in various colleges of Vinayaka Missions University, receipts of fees and other charges, accounts ledgers and various other fund flow documents.
On condition of anonymity, a sleuth said that the institution’s accounts in 10 banks have been kept temporarily under freeze.
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