TUMAKAURU: Income Tax sleuths on Thursday conducted a marathon raid at the educational institutions run under the flagship of Sri Siddhartha Academy of Higher Education (SSAHE), a deemed-to-be university which former Deputy Chief Minister Dr G Parameshwara heads as Chancellor.
In a daylong raid, which resumed during the evening, officials seized accounting books and files from the offices of Sri Siddhartha Institute of Technology (SSIT) and Sri Siddhartha Medical College (SSMC) and also the residence of Parameshwara. As soon as they entered the premises, armed police security personnel took control and secured the keys of cabinets from accounts officers, sources informed TNIE.
“They instructed all the officers and heads of institutions to switch off their cell phones and hand them over. Registrar Dr MZ Kurian answered the queries of the sleuths,” a source said.Raids were conducted simultaneously at the newly opened medical college at T Begur, near Nelamangala, in Bangalore Rural district. Parameshwara’s nephew Dr GS Anand was asked to appear before I-T officials for questioning, but since he was out of the state, he requested for some time, a source said.
When the raid was under way in the morning, Parameshwara was in Koratagere, his constituency, offering ‘bagina’ to a tank that was filled to the brim.
“I am not worried about the raid as we have sufficient documents to prove that we are not at fault. The institution was built by my father HM Gangadharaiah 50 years ago, and we did not have any other business,” he told reporters. It was after the death of his older brother Dr G Shivaprasad a year ago, that Parameshwara took over the Chancellor’s post.
A former official with SSAHE told TNIE, under condition of anonymity, that there were some irregularities in the institutions. “Parameshwara’s older brother had a knack for handling financial transactions. After his death, some mistakes happened. A New Delhi-based MBBS seat aspirant reportedly exposed such things sometime ago,” he said.
Supporters protest
A group of Parameshwara’s supporters, led by Nagutaa Ranganath, staged a protest outside the SSIT. “It’s a politically motivated raid and the timing has also been planned as the assembly session has just begun,” he alleged.