NAB gives away Rs 94.1m to Sargodha varsity administration

LAHORE: National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Thursday handed over a cheque of Rs 94.1 million to administration of University of Sargodha recovered by the Lahore bureau from the owners of illegal private sub-campuses of the university.

The cheque of recovered money was handed over to Registrar, Sargodha University, by the Director General, NAB, Lahore. Out of the total recovered amount, Rs 59.3 million would be returned to the exploited students under the supervision of NAB officials.

On this occasion, DG-NAB said that an amount of Rs 34.8 million was embezzled by the then administration of the University of Sargodha by misusing their powers and maladministration while the remaining amount was withdrawn from the pockets of innocent students studying in the sub-campuses established illegally by the ex-vice chancellor and his close aides.

The DG said that the ex-administration charged heavy fee from the students and did not award degrees and transcripts to them.

It may be remembered that NAB had taken ex-VC UoS, Dr Akram Ch, and the varsity’s former registrar along with the management of the Lahore and Mandi Bahauddin sub-campuses in custody in October 2018.

They were accused of establishing illegal sub-campuses, jeopardising the future of students, making excessive admissions, issuing fake documents to the students including transcripts, NOCs and registration cards, committing financial embezzlement and causing a loss of millions of rupees to the public exchequer.

Dr Chaudhry is still under custody of NAB while his last bail petition has also been rejected by the Supreme Court.

On this occasion, the DG also distributed cheques of recovered amount among the officials of Lahore Development Authority (LDA), Punjab Highway Department, Gujranwala Irrigation Employees Cooperative Housing Society (GIECHS) and Northern Power Generation Company Limited (NPGCL).