The Gujarat education department has filed a police complaint against DPS East School in Ahmedabad for allegedly submitting a forged government NOC to get CBSE affiliation. The school is already under the scanner for allegedly illegally leasing out land for an ashram run by controversial self-styled godman Nithyananda on the city’s outskirts.

Nithyananda is already facing the heat for allegedly abducting and keeping children in an illegal confinement, after a couple moved Gujarat High Court, seeking custody of their two daughters. District Education Officer RR Vyas, in the complaint to Vivekanand Nagar police station, said the school authorities forged a no-objection certificate (NOC) which was submitted to the Central Board of Secondary Education in 2010.

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The complaint, submitted on Thursday night, named MD and CEO of Kalorex Group (which runs the school) Manjula Pooja Shroff, her partner Hiten Vasant and former principal Anita Dua.

“The NOC submitted by the school with counter-signature of principal had not been issued by the Gujarat government,” the complaint said. “The education department had not granted the NOC after finding that they had provided wrong information….But the document submitted by them to the CBSE was signed by Manjula Shroff and Hiten Vasant,” it alleged, seeking registration of a case of forgery. The police officials said they were examining the complaint.

The CBSE had recently sought a report from the state education department as to how the school’s land was leased to Nithyananda’s ashram without its permission. Nithyananda is facing cases for kidnapping, wrongful confinement and assault among other offences after four children enrolled at his residential school alleged ill-treatment.

He is also accused of making children collect donations from followers to run his ashram in Ahmedabad, and has fled the country, and the police is working to gather concrete evidence against him, said the Gujarat police.

The Gujarat Police is in touch with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and other agencies to know the whereabouts of Swami Nithyananda. Ahmedabad Rural Superintendent of Police (SP) RV Asari said, “We have registered a case against Nithyananda and others and arrested two of his disciples Sadhvi Pran Priyananda and Priyatatva Riddhi Kiran on charges of allegedly kidnapping at least four children, keeping them in illegal confinement in a flat and using them as child labourers to promote activities of the ashram to collect donations,”news agency IANS quoted him as saying.