A private Himachal university in Solan sold fake degrees in bulk and laundered Rs 387 crore of the proceeds into real estate. Four years after the scam broke, its fugitive-in-chief is still officially in hiding — yet somehow kept buying property in his own name until the ED was reduced to confiscating his mansions one by one.
Manav Bharti University in Solan ran what ED filings describe as a well-organised racket of selling degrees for cash through a network of agents, and laundered roughly Rs 387 crore of the proceeds into movable and immovable assets across multiple Indian states. The scam broke in 2021. Four years, one Fugitive Economic Offender declaration and about Rs 200 crore in attached assets later, the ED's Shimla sub-zonal office on April 23 secured a Special Court (PMLA) order confiscating two more properties belonging to Mandeep Rana — son of founder Raj Kumar Rana, officially on the run, and apparently still acquiring so much real estate that the enforcement agency has a steady side business just locating it. The fugitive remains a fugitive. The university remains shut. The degrees remain in circulation.