Chairman of Solan’s Manav Bharti University arrested after his anticipatory bail plea is rejected

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, June 19

The chairman of Manav Bharti University, near here, was arrested on Friday after rejection of his anticipatory bail plea by the state high court in the multi-crore fake degree case.

Raj Kumar Rana was arrested on the court premises soon after the cancellation of his bail plea and is being brought to Solan where he will be questioned about the operations of the university, said police sources.

A special investigation team (SIT) led by the Solan SP is investigating the case registered against him on March 3. This is the fourth arrest in the case.

Rana’s arrest was delayed due to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and restriction on the inter-state movement. He, however, had applied for anticipatory bail before the high court earlier this month. He had sent his son and wife abroad on March 7 soon after the registration of a case fearing his imminent arrest.

Investigation into the case has revealed startling facts, including fake degrees allegedly possessed by him and his family. Cases pertaining to fake degrees had been registered against the MBU at various places, including Datia in Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Lucknow, Bilaspur and Pune.

The SIT will also write to various Bar Councils of the country to seek information about the fake LLB degrees issued to lawyers and check their authenticity as several such cases were detected while investigating the case, said sources in the SIT.

Rana was reportedly exploring the possibility of opening universities in Uttarakhand and Ahmedabad.

Officials will also send a report to Rajasthan Police to proceed legally against its sister concern, Madhav University at Udaipur, where a similar fake degree scam was unearthed while investigating this case.

Manav Bharti University had initially enrolled 200 students in 2009 in its first batch as per the university record seized by the police.