FIA submits initial report in SC: College to return ‘donations’ to students

LAHORE: The management of the Red Crescent Medical and Dental College has assured the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) that within a week it will return millions of rupees it had received in the form of donations back to students, The News has learnt.

Official sources told this correspondent on Sunday that soon after the surprise visit of the college by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, along with other judges a couple of days back, the FIA Lahore launched a probe into the issue after registering an enquiry over the allegations of overcharges in the name of donations by the college management. According to sources, the college management admitted that other than fee amounting to Rs850,000, the college received a million or so rupees from every student at the time of admission.

“So far we have come to the conclusion that as there are over 270 students currently enrolled with the college, the management will have to return at least Rs270 million to students it had charged from them in the name of donations,” an FIA official said. He said the Agency recorded statements of College Principal Abid Hussain, Secretary Red Crescent Society Chaudhry Abdul Majid, Member BOT Muhammad Nawaz, Manager Finance Shahid Iqbal and Member Managing Committee Liaqat Ali Chishti on Saturday and Sunday. The FIA submitted the initial report to the Supreme Court Registrar. The college management, sources said, also admitted before the investigators that the college not only lacked in medical facilities but also the faculty. They admitted that there was shortage of teaching and other staff, but they had advertised the vacant posts.

In the report, the FIA also pointed out that the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) had allowed the College 100 seats for admission but there was no specific merit criterion for admission to the medical college. “Anyone who appears in Medical & Dental College Admission Test (MDCAT) can get admission to the college,” observed the FIA. The PMDC had been requested to appoint a focal person regarding this matter and they were also requested to conduct inspection of the college, the FIA stated in the report.

Similarly, the report observed that hard disks /Laptops recovered from the College had also been handed over to technical experts of the FIA for forensic analysis. Moreover, the FIA in its report stated that bank accounts of the College would be examined and they would also obtain record of amounts submitted by the students. It is also stated in the report that a PMDC team had recently conducted inspection of the medical college on March, 1, 2018. A similar inspection of the College was made by the PMDC in October 2016, terming performance of the college satisfactory. It had allowed the college to make enrolments of students as per the allocated quota.