ORDER

06.01.2021 By this application under Section 439 CrPC, petitioner, namely, Mahbubur Rahman @ Mahamad Mahbubur Rahman, who was arrested on 10.11.2020, has prayed for regular bail, in connection with CID PS Case No. 20/2020, under Sections 120 (B)/406/409/419/420/468/471 IPC.

Today, the learned Additional Public Prosecutor, appearing for the State has produced the Case Diary and also the bail objection given by the IO.

Considered the submissions made by learned counsel for both the parties.

According to the petitioner, she is not involved in the offence alleged.

On 28th August, 2020, Sh. Mahmood Hassan, Director, Assam Minorities Development Board and State Nodal Officer, Pre-Matric Scholarship for Minorities, Assam, lodged an FIR at CID HQ to the effect that the Pre-Matric Scholarship Scheme for minority communities is a Central Sector Scheme sponsored/ implemented by the Ministry of Minority Affairs, Govt. of India annually. Students belonging to the minority communities who secure 50% marks and above in the previous examination and whose parents’/guardians’ annual income does not exceed Rs. 1 lakh are eligible to apply online under the scheme from Class-I to X. To improve transparency in the scheme, the National Scholarship Portal (NSP) was launched to invite applications online on the website, i.e., www.scholarships.gov.in and the amount of scholarship is credited in the bank account of the students through the Direct Benefit Transfer)DBT mode.

The Director/informant has also mentioned about the guidelines and as per the workflow of the system of the online verification of the applications, the verification is done at two levels after the online applications are filed by the applicants on NSP portal- one at the Institute/School level and another at the District level through the designated District Nodal Officer (DNO) (i.e. Inspector of Schools or his authorized officials/District Elementary Education Officer or his authorized officer)

approved by the Ministry of Minority Affairs.

The Director/informant has alleged in the FIR that Headmasters of Schools/Institutions in connivance with middle men and CSP operators of different banks misappropriated Govt. Funds meant for poor minority students. He has further alleged that many of them prepared fake documents and uploaded as genuine with a view to misappropriate Government money for their personal gains. Hence, the case.

On perusal of the Case Diary and report from the IO, it reveals that the accused petitioner illegally applied for scholarship online at NSP in the name of fake beneficiary of Arunoday Jatiya Bidyalaya (18020435009), Dinesh Jatiya Vidyalaya, Agomoni (18020205111), Milijuli Adarsha Bidyalaya (18020101010) of Dhubri District as well as verified the application’s online at NSP using Institute Nodal Officer’s Login. During investigation, it has come to light that not a single student of the schools applied for scholarship neither the Head of Institution’s applied at IS Office, Dhubri to register their schools at NSP. The petitioner also used his own SBI Account as well as his Mother’s, Father’s, Maternal uncle, Maternal Aunt, Nephew’s details and their bank accounts of BoB, Canara Bank, SBI, Allahabad Bank to apply for scholarship and even received Scholarship as beneficiary. He used fake pre-activated SIM card for applying for scholarship at NSP for receiving OTP against each online application. The arrested accused in connivance with other co-accused Abu Mucha ahmed, arrested (CSP Allahabad Bank, Tarabari Br.), Musharaf Ali, absconder (CSP Allahabad Bank Tarabari Br.) for getting the Bank Account’s detail in order to fill the online scholarship applications at NSP and in association with prime accused Abdul Kayum, Nazrul Islam, Faynuddin all absconder were involved in applying and verifying the application’s online using the Institute Nodal Officer’s login credentials. The petitioner and other co-accused used their own thumb impression against the beneficiaries A/C’