Davanagere: The CBI’s anti-corruption wing arrested Gayathri Devaraja, a senior professor at Davanagere University, on Saturday in connection with a bribery case involving the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) inspection team.

Devaraja, who previously served as the university’s registrar (administration), was a member of a seven-member NAAC inspection committee. Along with her, several others were arrested, including the chairman of the inspection committee and the vice-chancellor of the Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation (KLEF) in Andhra Pradesh.

The CBI registered a case against the members of the NAAC team and the officials of the educational institution, alleging that they had received bribes in exchange for favorable NAAC ratings, specifically aiming for A++ accreditation.

The investigation expanded to include prominent figures such as Koneru Satyanarayana (KLEF president), L Manjunatha Rao (former NAAC deputy adviser), M Hanumanthappa (Bangalore University professor), and M S Shyamsundar (NAAC adviser), who were named in the FIR.

In a coordinated operation, the CBI arrested G P Saradhi Varma (KLEF vice-chancellor), Koneru Raja Hareen (vice-president of KLEF), and A Ramakrishna (dir

ector of KL University, Hyderabad campus). The agency also conducted searches at 20 locations across several cities, recovering Rs 37 lakh, laptops, mobile phones, and incriminating documents.

The investigation is ongoing, with 14 individuals involved, as the CBI seeks to uncover the full scope of the operation.