As Delhi blast brings Faridabad’s Al Falah University under scrutiny, read who is Chancellor Jawad Ahmad Siddiqui: Scant digital footprint, financial fraud and more

On 10th November, a massive blast near Red Fort terrorised Delhi and the rest of the country. Within minutes, investigation agencies rushed to the spot to probe the explosion that took the lives of at least 13 people. Soon, the link between the Delhi Red Fort blast and Al-Falah University emerged, as the terrorist who initiated the explosion was an associate of three medical doctors linked to the university, arrested in a joint operation by Haryana Police and Jammu and Kashmir Police. The police had recovered over 2,900 kg of explosives hours before the Delhi blast from the locations linked to the arrested doctors.

While the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof (Dr) Bhupinder Kaur, finally issued a statement claiming the university had no links to the busted terror module, the Chancellor and founder of the university, Jawad Ahmad Siddiqui, remained silent. Interestingly, there is hardly any digital footprint of Siddiqui.

OpIndia dug into available information on Chancellor Jawad Ahmad Siddiqui and found some problematic history. His LinkedIn profile does not have much information. The “About” section reads, “Managing Trustee: Al-Falah Charitable Trust since 1995 till date, Chancellor: Al-Falah University, Faridabad since 2014 till date, Managing Director: Al-Falah Investments Limited since 1996 till date.”

OpIndia found a report published by Milli Gazette in July 2000, which suggested that a person named Jawwad Ahmad Siddiqui was in Tihar Jail with his two brothers for defrauding investors in Al-Falah Investment Limited. When we looked into information about the company, we found that it was registered in 1992 and has the status “strike off,” which means the company has stopped functioning.

From the information available on Zaubacorp, it was revealed that the company had only one director, Jawad Ahmad Siddiqui.

From Siddiqui’s past directorial associations, we found a link to Al-Falah Education Service Private Limited. Siddiqui was associated with this company as a director until March 2019.

Upon further checking information about Al-Falah Education Service Private Limited, we found that it had two previous directors, Jawad Ahmad Siddiqui and Saood Ahmad Siddiqui.

This information was crucial because when OpIndia looked into the case Milli Gazette had mentioned, there were two names cited, Jawad and Saood. We will come back to the case later.

To establish a connection between Al-Falah Education Service Private Limited and Al-Falah University, we checked the address of the company. It was “Al-Falah House, 274-A, Jamia Nagar, Okhla, New Delhi.”

It is the same address that Al-Falah University has on its official website.

We were also able to establish the connection through the email address “jasiddiqui@rediffmail.com,” which is listed as one of the official emails on several websites featuring the university’s profile.

On the Bharat Education page of the university, the email addresses of both Siddiqui and Fardeen are listed.

This email ID has been listed on Al-Falah Investments Limited’s Zaubacorp page, the same company that was involved in the fraud.

It is evident that the person who was booked and remained in Tihar Jail for a long time was the same Jawad Ahmad Siddiqui who is running Al-Falah University.

The current directors of the company are Sufyan Ahmad Siddiqui and Fardeen Beg. While there is not much information available about Sufyan Ahmad Siddiqui, Fardeen Beg is a teacher at Al-Falah University and also a part of the anti-ragging committee.

Coming to the case for which he was sent to Tihar while the proceedings were ongoing, OpIndia found a judgment of the Delhi High Court dated 27th March 2003, pronounced by then-Justice RC Chopra. According to the court documents, an FIR was filed at New Friends Colony, New Delhi, in 2000 under Sections 420, 409, 406, 468, 471 and 120(B) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The case was then forwarded to the Economic Offences Wing, Crime Branch, New Delhi.

According to the case documents, Jawad Siddiqui was the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of Al-Falah Group of Companies, and Saood Siddiqui (one of the former directors of Al-Falah Education Services Private Limited) was one of its directors. The petitioners and their co-accused induced a large number of investors to make deposits in their companies. The court noted that they misappropriated funds worth Rs 7.5 crores. The complaint against them was filed by one KR Singh, who was cheated to the tune of Rs 95 lakhs.

The judgment read, “It is alleged that the petitioners induced a large number of persons to make deposits in their group of companies but later on, by forging their signatures and fabricating documents, converted those deposits into shares of their companies.” Investigation and FSL reports confirmed that the signatures of the investors were forged. The deposits were also received in the names of some companies that never existed. The funds were then transferred to the personal accounts of the accused. By the time the court passed this particular judgment, Jawad was in Tihar for about 37 months and Saood was in jail for 38 months.

Their counsel had argued that the maximum punishment for the listed offences was only three years and requested the court to grant them bail, but the court denied it. The duo then went to the Supreme Court, which also refused to intervene.

According to a Tribune report from June 2004, in 1995, Al-Falah Group of Companies had formed Al-Falah Sehkari Awas Samiti. The Greater Noida Authority had allotted 10,000 square metres to the Samiti in 1996, where they decided to build 100 flats for its members and shareholders. However, due to some financial constraints, the construction did not go through, and Jawad and others were arrested.

While Jawad was behind bars, some of his associates duped him and forged his signatures to fraudulently sell some flats for Rs 13 crores. The Tribune report was about their arrest, and the accused were identified as SP Yadav, Manzoor Hasan Zaidi, and Sanjeev Shrivastava.

The revelations surrounding Jawad Ahmad Siddiqui raise serious questions about the credibility and background of those running Al-Falah University. From past allegations of fraud and forgery to the present-day controversy linking the institution to a terror module, the pattern reflects a history that cannot be ignored. While the university administration has distanced itself from the ongoing investigation, the evidence connecting its leadership to questionable financial and criminal activities suggests a deeper scrutiny of Al-Falah University and its management is both necessary and urgent.