KOCHI: The CBI probe into irregularities in granting AICTE accreditation to Malabar College of Engineering and Technology, Pallur, has found serious lapses in the report submitted by a panel tasked with inspecting the college.As per the CBI chargesheet, after receiving the application for accreditation of Malabar College of Engineering and Technology, the AICTE appointed M M Kulkarni, Veera Raghavan and Alok Das for conducting the inspection. However, bypassing the order, the regional office of the AICTE appointed another committee consisting of Ranjit Singh and Benny Mathew for conducting the inspection.
The members of the first panel were not informed by AICTE or its regional head Manju Singh about the inspection. The panel consisting of Benny Mathew and Ranjit Singh visited the college on June 7, 2009. As per the AICTE norms, the entire built-up area of the college should be 4,300 sq ft. In the inspection report, it was stated that college has a built-up area of 4,596.61 sq ft.
However, when a team of CPWD engineering conducted another inspection in December 2009, it was found that the built-up area of the college was only about 2,500 sq ft.After reopening the case in 2017, the CBI appointed another panel of engineers to examine the building structures and it filed a report mirroring the CPWD data.
The AICTE norms suggest a fund of Rs 2.35 crore in the college management account for infrastructure development and operational course. According to the CBI, the fund with the college account was only around Rs 77.47 lakh when it applied for AICTE accreditation.A substantial sum of the amount was later withdrawn.