By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 28 Sep: The trouble for Anurag Shankhdhar, the then District Social Welfare Officer of Udham Singh Nagar, who is accused of having assets disproportionate to his known sources of income is bound to increase with a team of Vigilance officials raiding his house in Dehradun and conducting searches.
It may be recalled that Shankhdhar is one of the major accused in the Scholarship scam of Uttarakhand, where non existing and non eligible students were being given scholarships by the government. This scam went on for years and was spread over several states.
Management of many prestigious educational institutes of Uttarakhand and other states were also involved in the scam where they were drawing money of scholarships from the social welfare department but were withdrawing the money for themselves. A large number of non existing students and fake bank accounts were being used for this fraud, which went on for a long time before it was detected and Shankdhar was suspended. Shankhdhar is understood to be a kingpin in the case as without his active role, such a fraud could not have been possible,
Today, a vigilance team engaged in action in the corruption case raided the residence of accused Anurag Shankhdhar in Dehradun and conducted a search operation. During this, cash worth lakhs, documents of movable and immovable properties and other important and incriminating documents including vehicle papers were recovered from the house of Shankhdhar. According to Vigilance, all the documents recovered from the house of the accused will be included in the investigation of the case and further legal action will be taken as per rules. According to Vigilance, the residence of the accused Anurag Shankhdhar, the then District Social Welfare Officer, Udham Singh Nagar, located in Dehradun district, related to the investigation of FIR No 12/2024 registered in Police Station Vigilance Establishment Sector Haldwani, Section 13(1)E read with Section 13(2) PC Act-1988 (Amendment Act-2018), was also searched by another Vigilance Establishment today itself. During the search, an amount of Rs 2 lakh in cash, ownership documents related to two buildings, vehicle Honda WRB and other important records were recovered for investigation. The details of the said recovered movable and immovable property will be included in the investigation and legal action will be taken as per rules.
