Chandigarh, March 26 -- The Haryana State Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (SV&ACB) filed a chargesheet against three accused in a Kaithal court for allegedly siphoning off about Rs.45 lakh through forged documents in an infamous "post-matric scholarship scam". In a statement on Wednesday, the ACB said that the accused-Dharambir, Rajesh Kumar and Naveen Kumar-allegedly orchestrated the fraud by opening fake bank accounts in the names of 91 students during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 academic sessions. In its damning 2018-19 fiscal report and tabled on the floor of Haryana Vidhan Sabha in 2021, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) had reported that suspected fraudulent payments to the tune of multi-crore were released by manipulating Aadhaar numbers of students under the post-matric scholarship scheme between 2014-19 in Haryana. Investigators found that the accused retained control over the bank accounts and used them to divert scholarship funds. "The accused executed the fraud by preparing fake scholarship applications and showing bogus admissions in Punjab-based educational institutions," the ACB said. As per the ACB, the documents were backed with forged college stamps, fake signatures of principals and fabricated attendance records to make them authentic. These documents were submitted to the district welfare officer's office in Kaithal, following which the scholarship amount was sanctioned. The ACB said the accused allegedly withdrew Rs.44,59,760 through biometric authentication, cheques and other means and transferred the funds into their own accounts.A case was registered on December 19, 2023, under relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the IPC. The three accused were arrested on December 29, 2025. While Naveen Kumar has been on bail since February 6, 2026, Dharambir and Rajesh Kumar are in judicial custody. Another accused Hukum Chand Gupta, the retired bank official, is yet to be arrested, the Bureau said. The scam had come to the fore during the 2021 budget session, when the CAG audit reports tabled in the Assembly pointed towards suspected fraudulent payments of Rs.19 crore between 2014-19 in Haryana. "The suspected fraudulent payments were made by manipulating Aadhaar numbers of students," the CAG report (2018-19 fiscal) stated. Meanwhile, last month the Haryana government enabled a multi-layer verification mechanism to disburse scholarship to SC and OBC students eligible for the scholarship scheme. The students will be first verified by the nodal officer of the concerned institution. After being verified, the district nodal officer and the city magistrate will verify the applications, following which the state nodal officer will transfer the scholarship amount directly into the bank accounts of the registered students....