The Madras High Court Bench here has directed Madurai Commissioner of Police to form a special team to nab the accused who reportedly ran a foreign college admission racket in the city and cheated several students after receiving huge amounts of money from them.
Justice K. Kalyanasundaram passed the order while dismissing an anticipatory bail application filed by two of the accused, R. Venugopal (54) and V. Rangesh (24). The judge ordered their arrest after R. Gandhi, counsel for the complainant, claimed that the accused had cheated many other students too.
According to an Inspector of Police attached to Central Crime Branch police here, A. Purushothaman of West Masi Street here had lodged a complaint with the Police Commissioner on April 23 last year accusing the advance bail applicants of having cheated him to the tune of Rs.15 lakh.
The complainant had claimed that the accused had received the money through bank transactions after promising to secure admission for his son in a MBA programme offered by an institute in London. However, they did not keep up their promise and returned only Rs.5.90 lakh.
After the commissioner forwarded the complaint to the CCB for enquiry, the accused filed the present application last year and obtained interim anticipatory bail after promising to pay the entire amount back to the complainant. However, they did not keep up this promise too. “Hence, on April 23, 2015, a case was registered for offences punishable under Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 506 part I (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and the same is pending investigation,” the Inspector said in his status report.
On his part, the complainant’s counsel contended that the accused had been running a racket and cheating innocent people. Hence, “considering the nature of allegations… the Commissioner is directed to form a special team to secure the accused and take action as per law,” the judge said.
