Multiple teams of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are conducting raids in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) as part of its money laundering investigation against coaching institute FIITJEE, a coaching institute chain that prepares students for competitive exams, which recently shut its centres abruptly.
The case stems from the First Information Reports (FIRs) filed by Noida and Delhi Police on the complaints of some parents, who said in January that the FIITJEE centres suddenly shut, leaving their children in the lurch. The parents alleged they deposited lakhs of rupees as fee, but they got no service or refund.
“The action is being undertaken under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Locations in Delhi and neighbouring Noida and Gurugram, including those of the promoters of the coaching institute, are being searched,” an RD official said.
Last month, the Delhi Police Economic Offences Wing (EOW) lodged a cheating case against FIITJEE, after receiving 190 complaints from parents of students who studied at its Preet Vihar centre in East Delhi, which was shut down in mid-January. The FIR has been registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC), as the complaints had started coming in since 2022. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the new criminal code of India, came into effect on July 1, 2024, replacing IPC.
“The EOW had started a probe after it received around 35 complaints in February, which has now gone up to 190. These complaints were initially filed with the local police in East Delhi and later forwarded to the EOW, as the amount was suspected to be big and needed a thorough investigation,” the officer said.
In January, it came to light that FIITJEE had shut down several centres across Delhi-NCR, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh, leaving students and parents in limbo. The institute, which has 73 study centres across the country, has been facing a financial crisis, with staff at many branches resigning en masse.
So far, the police in Ghaziabad, Noida, and Bhopal have lodged multiple FIRs against FIITJEE. In February, the Greater Noida police seized over Rs 11.11 crore from 12 bank accounts linked to FIITJEE’s founder Dinesh Goyal as part of its probe in a similar cheating case, said officers.
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FIITJEE provides coaching for competitive exams to engineering aspirants and has 73 centres across the country.
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