Digvijay Singh, ex-education minister booked for fraud

Bhopal: Three persons, including former Madhya Pradesh CM Digvijay Singh and one of his ex-cabinet colleagues have been booked by the state Economic Offences Wing (EOW) for fraud and unduly favouring a private institute here.

Singh-- who was Chief Minister of MP from 1993 to 2003 -- along with his Technical Education Minister Raja Pateria have been accused of unlawfully reducing the penalty of RKDF college from Rs 24 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh, a top official said today.

Apart from the duo, EOW also booked RKDF Chairman Sunil Kapoor yesterday.

According to the complaint of a local journalist Radhavallabh Sharda, both Singh and Pateria in collusion with RKDF College waived off the institute's penalty imposed on it by the concerned department over some 'wrongful' admissions in 2000-01 and 2001-02.

The College had then requested Singh to slash the penalty to Rs 5 lakh but he allegedly reduced it to Rs 2.5 lakh.

The trio have been booked under section 420 (cheating), 467 (using as genuine forged document), 120 (b) (conspiracy) of IPC and relevant sections of Prevention of Corruption Act, the official said, adding further investigations are on.