GUWAHATI: The Enforcement Directorate’s Guwahati office on Tuesday conducted searches at eight places against Sewali Devi Sharma, a retired Rajasthan cadre IAS officer, and others in a money laundering case involving Rs 105 crore.
Sharma earlier served as executive chairman-cum-director of the ‘open and distance learning’ (ODL) cell of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) in Assam on deputation.
She was also responsible for the implementation of National Council for Teacher Education’s two-year diploma in elementary education programme through SCERT’s distance mode.
“The approval to government of Assam was for 59 recognised institutions with a capacity of 100 each for total of 27,897 government teachers. However, she opened 347 study centres and enrolled 1,06,828 trainees instead of 27,897 trainees in order to collect more funds,” the ED said in a statement.
She opened five bank accounts for the ODL cell, where she was the sole signatory, which was in contravention of the Assam Financial Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2005.
“Instead of depositing the amount of Rs 115,12,80,099 received as fees from the individuals in the government treasury, she deposited the received funds in the above-mentioned bank accounts opened by her and spent more than Rs 105 crore without obtaining financial power as per the delegation of power Rules of the government of Assam,” the statement further stated.
According to the ED, the expenditure was incurred for supplies and execution of works without following rules and procedures, while payments were released without the complete supply of materials and without execution of works.
“The contracts were found to have been given to entities owned/controlled by family members or close associates/close relatives (which included firms owned by son-in-law, daughter, or associates of Smt. Sewali Devi Sharma) as well as to one Sarang More, CA, who was also auditor of the ODL cell,” the statement said.
It added that these contracts were awarded without advertisements or invitations for tenders, etc, as mandated for each procurement of above Rs 5 lakh.
Except for two parties, none had any experience to execute work orders awarded to them and payments were made without the required receipts or verification of actual supply.
Sharma was arrested by the Assam police from Rajasthan in 2023. According to reports, the Supreme Court granted bail to her then.
