CBI probe demanded into Vet collge affair

| 28 March 2000 22:33 IST

The demand has been a thorough inquiry by the CBI while the Indian Veterinary Council is also seized with the issue of permitting a controversial private veterinary college in Goa, which is found to have cheated the people in Karnataka before.

The state government led by Francisco Sardinha, however, appears to be providing all sorts of protection to the S S Foundation, who is planning to set up a capitation college here, in spite of a fact that it has been blacklisted by his counterparts in the neighbouring Karnataka state.

Serious strictures were passed by the Karnataka high court against Dr K A Swami Naidu, who cheated hundreds of students in late '80s while claiming affiliation of his Bharatiya Veterinary College with the New Port University of the USA.

"It is clear that no such accredited universities exist in the USA. Probably a few individuals in USA constituted themselves as the University and have been extending a helping hand to those who venture in India (like the society herein), in the field of education to exploit the innocent public", stated the court order passed in 1987.

In spite of this, Naidu once again approached the Karnataka authorities in 1989 for the NOC, posing the BVC now as a joint venture with the countries like Israel, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe etc and recognising the BVM degree of Government of Zambia. But having known his past record, his proposal was outrightly rejected.

Though chief minister Sardinha now claims that Naidu was disallowed in Karnataka because no private college was allowed there, the Goa University has confirmed from all the concerned authorities in Karnataka the BVC's past record, due to which its fresh attempts to set up a college there were foiled.

"Even in Goa Dr Naidu began it in a fraudulent manner", points out Dr Dattaram Desai, a social activist, after whose complaint the Goa University has become alert though it had earlier granted them provisional affiliation. The BVC claimed that it is already affiliated to the Goa University and the college is situated in a government complex in Ponda, while inviting students for admission in May last year.

Disregarding a complaint made by Dr Desai in this regard, the Sardinha government went ahead handing over the animal husbandry departmental building to the BVC in December later, so that Dr Naidu could show the infrastructure to the inspection committee of the Veterinary Council of India, which came down here early this month.

"Not we, the government has to act now", clarifies Prof D V Borkar, the Goa University registrar. In spite of he forwarding the report of Dr Naidu's nefarious activities in the past in Karnataka, the state government has continued the NOC granted to the BVC. "We are an academic body and not the investigative agency", he quips.

Ravi Naik, the state opposition leader belonging to the Congress, has also made it a public issue by raising it in the ongoing Assembly session and demanding CBI inquiry into the whole affair. "It's a biggest fraud played on the people of Goa", he alleges, fearing that students from all over the country could be made victims once again.

Sardinha, who still justifies his action of granting NOC to the BVC, has however rejected the demand of CBI inquiry claiming that Goa needs a vet college. "We will scrap the NOC if the veterinary council does not permit it", he says. The ball is now in the court of the Veterinary Council of India.

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