A social service organisation representing employees of the Manohar Phalke Polytechnic at Sion has filed a petition in the Bombay high court seeking registration of criminal offence against the management and principal of the college. The petition alleges that the persons in question have misguided, mislead and cheated the Central and the state governments, apart from the students at large and have unjustifiably enriched themselves. The petition, filed by Dharmraj Kamgaar Karamchari Sangh, states that numerous complaints to various state and Central authorities against the college’s illegalities went unheeded for the past six months. The petitioner states that since the year 2010, AICTE has adopted an online process for grant of approval and extension wherein all technical institutes are required to submit their application forms online its web portal. “In other words, AICTE has begun following a process of granting approvals and extensions based on self-disclosures by technical institutes without devising a mechanism of checks and balances or incorporating relevant processes which check for data manipulation or data fudging,” it alleges. The petitioner states that the principal of the Padmabhushan Vasantda-da Patil Pratishthan’s College of Engineering, has on affirmation intentionally submitted false information on the infrastructure available in the college while submitting the online application form for the extension of approval for the year 2012-2013. The petition, therefore, has prayed before the high court to direct an inquiry into the alleged illegalities carried out by the college.
