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The Delhi High Court has asked the city police to look into allegations of embezzlement in various land deals and tax evasions by the management of DAV College.
“The Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) of Economic Offence Wing (EoW) of Delhi Police is directed to look into it (complaint) and act as per the law,” a bench of Chief Justice D. Murugesan and Justice V.K. Jain said.
The Bench, however, made it clear that it cannot order a “roving” enquiry by the CBI into various allegations of Ashok Khanna and O.P. Mehta, Delhi residents who filed the PIL against Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College Management Committee.
The court, which disposed of the PIL with the direction to the DCP (EoW), was informed that the complaint had been referred to the CBI, but the latest status was not known.
During the hearing, Khanna’s counsel Prakash Kumar sought a direction for the CBI enquiry saying the matter pertained to the fundamental right to education and the DAV Trust and Management Society, which runs the DAV College Management Committee, cannot take a plea as it was an NGO and cannot be put to scrutiny like a government institution.
The DAV Trust and Management Society, an NGO which was registered in 1886, runs 750 institutions across the country.
The PIL alleged the Public Accounts Committee, in 2005, had found that the DAV management “evaded tax” to the tune of Rs 16.61 crore and Rs 24.12 crore in assessment years of 2000-01 and 2001-02 respectively.
It also claimed that a functionary of the NGO, which gets IT exemption and other concessions, including grants from state and Central governments, has been involved in Rs 30 crore fund embezzlement in a land deal at Jalandhar. The plot was to be purchased for establishing a DAV university.
The DAV universities were to be established at Pune, Yamuna Nagar (Haryana) and Jalandhar (Punjab).
“Several complaints of misappropriation of funds came to the office of DAV about scams in the land purchase at Pune...,” the PIL said, adding that the EoW cell did not take any action on an earlier complaint.
The petition also alleged that other scams, including the purchase of computers for DAV—run institutions, took place.
A committee, headed by Justice (retd) R.N. Mittal, was constituted in 2010 by the then president of DAV group to enquire into the allegations and it gave a report confirming embezzlement of funds in land deal, the PIL said.
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