The secretary of the Servants of India Society (SIS), the parent body of the prestigious Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (GIPE), has been arrested for allegedly misappropriating ₹1.5 crore in institutional funds. According to police, Milind Deshmukh was taken into custody on Saturday following a complaint lodged by GIPE’s Deputy Registrar Vishal Gaikwad at the Deccan Gymkhana police station.
Deshmukh is accused of diverting GIPE funds during 2022–23 for the purchase of SIS land in Nagpur, without securing official permissions or following due process. As per the complaint, Deshmukh unilaterally drafted a letter on SIS letterhead, stamped by the Gokhale Institute, demanding to freehold SIS land valued at ₹1.5 crore. The GIPE Board of Management approved the request on December 14, 2022, without further scrutiny.
Subsequently, in February 2023, GIPE transferred ₹1.02 crore to the Nagpur district collector’s account, and ₹40 lakh via cheque to the Servants of India Society. The latter amount was claimed to be spent on document retrieval, stamp duty, contractor fees, and administrative costs. However, the complaint alleges this money was misused for Deshmukh’s personal benefit.
Deshmukh has been booked under IPC Sections 406, 420, and 34 for criminal breach of trust, cheating, and conspiracy.
The scandal comes amid existing tensions at GIPE, which recently saw the removal—and immediate reinstatement—of Chancellor and EAC-PM member Sanjeev Sanyal by SIS over the institute’s “declining academic standards” and a poor NAAC ‘B’ grade. In a letter posted on X, Sanyal had earlier flagged ongoing financial irregularities at the institution.
He defended his tenure by pointing out that the NAAC grade was based on data from years before he assumed office as Chancellor, shifting the blame to former administrators—ironically, now under the scanner.
