Patan police have lodged an FIR against local Congress MLA Kirit Patel, who was the former in-charge principal of an MSW College, in connection with the embezzlement of nearly Rs 82 lakh collected as interview fees.
The FIR was lodged around midnight on Wednesday after a complaint filed by Babulal Prajapati, the vice-chancellor of Patan-based Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University. It is alleged that Patel was involved in the embezzlement of funds between 2012 to 2017 when he was the in-charge principal of the college. As head of the college, Patel had arranged interviews for teaching staff to nearly 250 colleges that offer Masters in Social Work (MSW) degrees that are affiliated to HNGU.
Prajapati alleged that Patel neither gave accounts of the fees collected for the interviews, not did he deposit the money with the university.
“After receiving complaints from a local advocate Pankaj Kumar Vailani and senate member Manoj Patel in October, we called for information from the colleges. Of the 250, 193 colleges informed that they had paid Rs 82,31,584 to Patel,” Prajapati said in his complaint.
However, Patel refuted the charges and said they were fabricated out of political vendetta. Kirit Patel, who was the local convener of Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), was elected on the Congress ticket in December 2017 elections.
The Gujarat High Court has directed Patan police not to take any coercive action against Patel who moved the court to quash the FIR on Thursday
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