CHENNAI:T D Naidu, the chairman of the defunct D D Medical College in Tiruvallur, who has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on charges of cheating two banks to the tune of `136 crore, is not new to the world of cheating.
Each time he has been cornered, he has managed to take on a new avatar and cheat more unsuspecting people.
The former Goondas Act detenue (quashed by the High Court), had shot into limelight in 2003 when students of his Deendayal Engineering College in Tiruvallur rushed to the Anna University complaining of harassment. Apart from monetary fleecing, the students alleged that Naidu would enter the girls’ hostels at night in an inebriated condition.
Besides, those who supplied electronic equipment and other material to the college claimed that their bills were not paid.
Following an inquiry, the then Anna University Vice Chancellor E Balagurusamy had disaffiliated the college and for the first time got all the students transferred to other engineering colleges. However, many officials including the then Tiruvallur Collector and some senior police officers were afraid of handling Naidu as he was in the habit of dropping names. Some bureaucrats, Anna University non-teaching staff and lawyers were allegedly on his illegal pay roll. Even journalists were issued legal notices or cultivated. He would also keep a tab on journalists and call them up giving details about their location seemingly to intimidate them.
“Naidu would claim that he knew top Income Tax officers and would have the bureaucrats raided if they interfered in his affairs,” recalled an official familiar with Naidu’s modus operandi. He tried to save the engineering college by handing over administration to a person by name A Ravi and withdrawing himself from the scene.
After the crackdown by the Anna University, Naidu floated the All India and Medical Colleges Association and befriended some top AICTE and HRD Ministry officials. But soon he wound up his engineering college.
Within a few years, he converted the engineering college campus into the now defunct DD Medical College and Hospital.
While bureaucrats in the Health Ministry, who had dealt with him previously, shied away from granting a No Objection Certificate, Naidu moved the court and obtained a favourable order. As early as 2009, some faculty members of the college complained that their salaries were not being paid.
Despite the college being infamous and not having the approval from the Medical Council of India, many ignorant students from the districts and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, ended up paying several lakhs of rupees to join the institution. Today, with the medical college too being shut down, these students are literally on the streets, while Naidu cools his heels in prison.