NEW DELHI: Months before the UP assembly elections, the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) has dug up alleged financial irregularities committed by the state’s erstwhile Mulayam Singh Yadav government between 2003 and 2007. On Monday, CAG informed the Supreme Court that the government “arbitrarily released” Rs 103.92 crore to Chaudhary Charan Singh Degree College CCSDC ) in Etawah district.“In the absence of any well-defined scheme for providing grant-in-aid to private colleges/institutions for creation of capital infrastructure, no guidelines were available on the financial pattern, ceiling limits, selection criteria, scope and coverage, matching principle, conflict of interest etc, and therefore, grants were sanctioned arbitrarily to CCSDC... without providing opportunity to similar institutions to apply and seek financial assistance under the said scheme,” the CAG said in its affidavit.CAG found that the huge grant-in-aid was given as financial assistance under the ‘Shiksha Protsahan Yojna’ on the occasion of former PM Charan Singh’s birth centenary.“No scheme named as Shiksha Protsahan Yojna existed in 2003. In fact, the director of higher education himself was not aware of any such scheme and had written to the UP government on November 16, 2004, seeking details of the Yojana and its terms and conditions,” it said.On Monday, solicitor general Ranjit Kumar informed a bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur, and Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice L N Rao, that CAG had filed a detailed affidavit after examining the scheme and grant-in-aid given by the then SP government to CCSDC and other educational institutions between 2003 and 2007.“Sanction of huge amount of grant-in-aid to a specific private college without formulation of a well-defined scheme was highly improper and in violation of General Financial Rules (GFR),” CAG said. On a petition by one Mahendra Nath Rai, the SC had, on April 21, directed CAG to audit the accounts of CCSDC so far as it received grants-in-aid.CAG took serious objection to the then Mulayam government sanctioning Rs 34.98 crore to the college from the contingency fund created to meet expenses arising from unforeseen circumstances like natural calamities.“The nature of grant of Rs 34.98 crore provided by the government from contingency fund to CCSDC was not an expenditure of emergent character which could have caused any serious inconvenience or serious loss or damage to public service. It was also not administratively impossible to wait for budgetary approvals for release of grant instead of invoking the contingency fund provision of the Constitution,” CAG said.CCSDC was founded in 1983 at Heonra in Mulayam’s constituency Etawah. CAG said the college was developed into a major educational institute in 2004-07 with a modern building constructed through a grant of more than Rs 100 crore from the government exchequer.“The government decision to sanction more than Rs 100 crore as grant-in-aid to CCSDC was taken with the approval of the minister who was associated with Shiksha Prasar Samiti of CCSDC. Hence, important standards of financial propriety were overlooked while sanctioning substantial amount of funding to a private college,” CAG said.