SHILLONG: The Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, Balram Joshi, on Thursday remanded CMJ University vice chancellor Chandra Mohan Jha to ten days in police custody.
Jha was produced before the court immediately after he was brought from Patna.
As per reports, Jha landed in Guwahati at around 10.15 am on Thursday. He was then brought by the State CID team to Shillong at around 4 pm and finally produced in the court at around 5.30 pm.
Jha who was arrested on Tuesday was supposed to be produced before the CJM court, Shillong, within three days’ time since he was on a transit remand.
“We had sought for 14 days police custody. But the court granted only ten days of custody,” a senior police official informed.
The police official also informed that the police would start interrogating Jha immediately.
Jha had eluded arrest for over a year since former Meghalaya Governor RS Mooshahary blew the lid off the alleged scam in the CMJ University for illegally awarding hundred of fake PhD degrees to teachers across the country last year.
The University had awarded PhD degrees to 434 candidates in 2012-13, and had enrolled 490 students for the PhD programme for 2013-2014. Only 10 of the university’s faculty members had doctorates.
The then Principal Secretary to Governor RS Mooshahary, MS Rao, had filed an FIR against Jha on the directive of the Governor.
The Supreme Court last month had cancelled Jha’s anticipatory bail which led to his subsequent arrest from a public campaign in Bihar on Tuesday afternoon. Jha is contesting the Lok Sabha election as an Independent candidate from Jhanjharpur parliamentary constituency in Bihar.
Several of the University’s top officials were arrested and subsequently released on bail, including the Chancellor of a private university in Arunachal Pradesh, Dhanwant Singh Matharoo, who is said to be allegedly involved with the affairs of CMJ University.