Jaipur, July 1, 2013: Mahesh Chandra Sharma owns a resort and many houses. In one of its biggest catches, the Rajasthan Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has unearthed assets worth over Rs 100 crore from a compounder posted as an “adviser” to the president of the Nursing Council of India (NCI). The ACB found large-scale corruption in sanctioning and allotting seats to nursing colleges in the state.
The ACB team had initially nabbed Mahesh Chandra Sharma and middleman Rajendra Saini while accepting a bribe of Rs 5 lakh for increasing the number seats of a nursing college. The ACB then inspected Sharma’s house and found land documents worth over Rs 100 crore. Sharma’s properties include a resort, farmhouses and many houses.
From the documents, bureau officials also found that Sharma had also acquired a hospital in the Shipra Path area in Mansarowar for Rs 22 crore recently. It was also found that Sharma’s wife is a partner in 25 nursing colleges in Rajasthan.
He joined as an adviser to the president of the Nursing Council of India in 2007.
The modus operandi of the duo was to find fault with nursing institutions, like non-compliance of rules for new courses started, and later demand money to fix the issues, said ACB Additional Director General Ajit Singh.
Sharma used to work as an agent of NCI president T Dilip Kumar. Since they were working in tandem, he could get the required work done and share the bribe money with the Dilip Kumar.
The ACB teams raided many nursing colleges at various parts of the state. Sources revealed that the team also raided the Mewar BSc Nursing institute owned by Udaipur (Urban) vice-president of the Congress Pankaj Sharma, a close confidant of Union Minister Girija Vyas.