Police file charge sheet against Jha, 10 others

CMJ University fraud case

SHILLONG: Police on Friday filed the charge sheet against CMJ University chancellor Chandra Mohan Jha and ten others associated with the university in connection with the fraud case.
Others who were charge sheeted included Jha’s wife I.R. Jha, his two sons – Govind Jha, Secretary of CMJ Foundation and Gopal Jha, Treasurer of CMJ Foundation, CMJU Registrar Mrinal Kanti Deb, Deputy Registrar Premlal Rai, Director Manjit Kaur Kaushal, Human Resource Manager Juban Kharpuri, Chancellor Apex e-learning Bangalore Dhanwant Singh Matharoo, former Registrar Tilok Das Gupta and an employee (Examination Department) Asifa Nongrum.
East Jaintia Hills SP and the then Additional SP (CID) Spill Thamar, who was the Investigating Officer of the case, had filed the charge sheet before the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate Balaram Joshi.
“We have filed a charge sheet of more than 100 pages before the court,” police sources informed, adding that they have also submitted a huge quantity of documents connected with the case to the court.
During the course of the investigation, the CID sleuths had interrogated around 40 individuals, and were able to draw out thousands of documents, including over 4,000 Ph.D. theses.
CMJU had allegedly awarded Ph.D. degrees to 434 students and enrolled 490 students for the same programme for 2012-2013.
The inquiry was initiated after the then Meghalaya Governor Ranjit Shekhar Mooshahary, in his capacity as Visitor of CMJU, had exposed the irregularities in the university. Acting on Mooshahary’s recommendation, the State Government had decided to dissolve CMJU on March 31 last year.
Jha was arrested from Bihar during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
CMJU was established in 2009 through a Meghalaya Assembly legislation and was the first private varsity to operate in the State.