SHILLONG: The Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) P Joshi on Friday remanded a close aide of CMJ University vice chancellor Chandra Mohan Jha, Dhanwan Singh Matharoo in seven days police custody. Matharoo would again be produced in the court on March 20.
The State CID had arrested Matharoo, who is also the vice chancellor of Apex Professional University, Itanagar on March 9.
He was arrested on his arrival from Bangalore in the State capital after being summoned by the State CID.
However, Matharoo could not be interrogated as he had to be shifted to Shillong Civil Hospital immediately after his arrest due to health complications.
Sources on Sunday informed that he was released from the hospital on March 13.
According to sources, Bangalore-based Matharoo had facilitated the establishment of 531 study centres of CMJ University outside Meghalaya which is in contravention with UGC norms and Supreme Court ruling.
Sources informed that the close aide of Jha had managed to collect money amounting to crores from over 7000 students by enrolling them in these study centres of the university.
Sources also informed that the State CID detected the illegal activities of Jha’s close aide after examining the documents which were seized from the university.
“The State CID is likely to summon other smaller agents of Jha who are operating similar study centres illegally in other parts of the country,” sources said.
Jha’s arrest to be initiated post SC order
Sources also said that Jha’s arrest would be initiated immediately after receiving the official order from the Supreme Court cancelling the earlier interim order on anticipatory bail granted to the CMJ vice chancellor.
Earlier on March 7, the Supreme Court had cancelled its earlier interim order on anticipatory bail granted to Jha.
It was on July 19 last year that the Supreme Court had granted an interim protection for Jha after he made a prayer for anticipatory bail in the apex court following rejection of his bail application by the High Court of Meghalaya.
However, in August last, the State Government had challenged the anticipatory bail granted to Jha by the Supreme Court.
The Government lawyer Ranjan Mukherjee, who appeared on behalf of the State Government during the hearing of the case had said that it was after the state government filed a status report of the case that the Court cancelled the interim relief granted earlier to Jha.
During a hearing held on March 3, the Court had asked for the status report of the case from the State CID.