‘Fake university’: FIR against VC of govt varsity, four others

Jaipur: The Rajasthan Police has booked the vice chancellor of a state-run institute and four others for allegedly faking details for a bill to establish a new private university. The state government hurriedly withdrew the draft legislation last month when the scandal surfaced.

Prof Amarika Singh, Vice Chancellor of the state government’s Mohanlal Sukhadia University in Udaipur and Ranjeet Singh, founder trustee of Sikar’s Gurukul Shikshan Sansthan, that came up with the proposal to build the university, are among those named in the FIR.

The three others are Dr Vijay Beniwal, Assistant Professor, Government Law College in Alwar, Prof Jayant Singh of Rajasthan University in Jaipur and Prof. Ghanshyam Singh Rathore from Udaipur.

As per the bill introduced on February 24, the university was proposed to be set up by the Gurukul Shikshan Sansthan in Sikar and the “verification” of its infrastructure was carried out by the committee headed by Prof. Amarika Singh. Beniwal, Jayant Singh and Ghanshyam Rathore were its members.

The bill was slated to be passed on March 22.

Schedule-I of the bill mentioned that the infrastructure comprised administrative, academic blocks and residential blocks with a total built-up area of about 24,811 square metres.

However, the state government was compelled to withdraw ‘The Gurukul University Sikar Bill, 2022’, during the Assembly session on the day it was supposed to be passed, after deputy leader of Opposition Rajendra Rathore alleged that the infrastructure mentioned in it existed only on papers.

Following this, Speaker CP Joshi sought a factual report from the Sikar collector while the government ordered an inquiry by the Jaipur divisional commissioner.

On the basis of the probe report, the joint secretary of the education department registered a case with Jaipur’s Ashok Nagar police station on Monday.