Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday upheld the conviction of the first accused, K.V.L. Jayasimha, in the 2001 post-matric scholarship scam case. He was sentenced to three years of jail then.
The High Court directed the trial court to call for the appearance of Jayasimha and send him to the prison to serve the sentence, after deducting the sentence he had undergone. The court confirmed the conviction under the charges of impersonation, forging documents and cheating.
The substantive sentence under each count is three years. However, all the sentences will run concurrently.
The court, however, acquitted two other accused — Uradi Santosh Kumar, district social welfare officer of Hyderabad from 2000-02, and K. Venkateshwar Rao, superintendent of deputy pay and accounts office from 1995 to 2002.
Justice K. Surender passed the orders over appeals filed by the accused, challenging the trial court orders, which sentenced them to imprisonment for fraud amounting to '22 crore.
The case of the prosecution was that 11 accused entered into a criminal conspiracy to defraud the government of post-matric scholarships to Scheduled Castes community students. In the said process, all the accused created false and forged Form 103, post-matric scholarship bills and its enclosures, by providing fictitious college names.
The bills were submitted to the deputy pay and accounts office at Masab Tank and passed, with cheques issued for the amounts. Bank accounts were opened in the names of fictitious persons, claimed as principals of the non-existent colleges. The cheques were deposited and cash was withdrawn from the accounts.
