The record
Written from the 1 report below. Nothing here is unsourced.
- A court in Ranipet, Tamil Nadu, has sentenced two officials of a government-aided primary school — correspondent Karunagara Sanjeev Doss and headmistress Alice Thabitha Vijay Kumari — to four years in jail for a 'ghost student scam.'
- They fabricated records of 187 non-existent students to secure six excess teaching posts and wrongfully drew over ₹4.69 lakh in government funds, including salaries and noon meal allocations.
- The case, built on a DVAC investigation, involved convictions for criminal misconduct and misappropriation of public funds, along with fines of ₹35,000 and ₹40,000.
- The verdict is significant because ghost student fraud is a wider problem in India, with an estimated ₹144.33 crore lost from minority scholarship funds and over 6,000 institutes flagged in a National Scholarship Portal investigation.
What to watch next
- Whether other flagged institutes from the National Scholarship Portal investigation face similar prosecutions
- Any further DVAC action in Tamil Nadu's government-aided schools over padded enrolment records
- Outcome of the CBI referral on minority scholarship fund siphoning
Coverage1
1 report
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Named India · Vitva Ratna Villa Government Aided Primary School · Alice Thabitha Vijay Kumari · Central Bureau of Investigation · Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption · Hindustan News Desk · Karunagara Sanjeev Doss · Ministry of Minority Affairs · National Council of Applied Economic Research · National Scholarship Portal · PTI
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