Four more remanded to police custody in cash-for-marks scam

AHMEDABAD: A magisterial court on Tuesday sent four more accused persons in the 'cash for marks' scam to six-day police remand after the CID (crime) sought their custodial interrogation for 10 days. Pankaj Patel (47) of Vadodara, Vipul Shah (49) and Pranav Shah (39) both from Gandhinagar, and Dilip Shah (50) from Paldi were arrested by the probe agency on Monday in connection with a complaint filed by the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board ( GSHSEB) in the scam two months ago.
All four work for Nilpa Software Systems, which was assigned the task of preparation of marksheets of students who had appeared for boards exams. The probe agency claimed that the four were named by Sanjay and Samir Shah, who were arrested last month along with Mrugesh Patel and Vinod Patel. They were also remanded to police custody. Mrugesh was released on bail later.
CID (crime) told the court that it wanted to interrogate these four to find out who else was involved in the scam, about the bank accounts, and how they collected money from parents of the students. The probe agency claimed that these four had talked to 90 parents of students that took Standard XII Science tests from Ahmedabad, Vadodara and Surat.
The cops claimed that Pankaj talked to four parents, Vipul dealt with 11 persons, while Pranav and Dilip talked to one and three persons respectively for the purpose of alteration of marks in students' marksheets. The probe agency claimed that it has twice recorded statement of Nilpa's owner - Pravin Shah.
After CID (crime)'s submissions, additional chief judicial magistrate M S Bhatt permitted the probe agency to interrogate the four in its custody for six days.