Lucknow, Feb 15 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (UPSTF), probing into the Ayush admission scam, has charged the former director, ayurveda department, counselling in-charge and 13 others for forging the NEET merit list.

STF filed a charge sheet in a Lucknow court against former Ayurveda director S.N. Singh, counselling in-charge Umakant Yadav, former senior assistant director, Ayurveda, Rajesh Singh, and former junior assistant in ayurveda directorate Kailash Chandra Bhaskar.

Others who have been charge sheeted include UPTRON Powertronics director Kuldeep Verma, AGM, UPTRON Prabodh Singh, directors of private companies Gaurav Gupta, Harshwardhan Tiwari, Saurabh Maurya, Indradev Mishra, Rupesh Ranjan Pandey, Vijay Yadav, along with managers of private firms Alok Trivedi, Dharmendra and Vijay.

All the accused have been charged with sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), and 471 (fraudulently using documents) of the IPC, and under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

In November 2022, anomalies were flagged by the Union ministry of Ayush in admission of undergraduate students to state's government and private ayurvedic, Unani and homeopathy colleges.

The state government handed over the probe to the STF. The STF said it surfaced during the probe that accused S.N. Singh, in connivance with two other officials and the organising private firm, Soft Solution Private Limited, reportedly tampered with the data they obtained from the directorate which led to admission of undeserving candidates.