Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Dec 24: The State High Court came down heavily on the Education Department for not taking important and sensitive issues, pertaining to the education sector of the State, seriously.
The Division Bench of Justice MH Attar and Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey observed this while hearing a PIL in which court is monitoring the investigation into multi-crore scam and huge bungling in Elementary Teachers Training (ETT) colleges across the State.
After the perusal of status report of Under Secretary to Government School Education Department, the Court said the status report showed that the respondents are not taking important and sensitive issues, pertaining to the education sector of the State, seriously.
The committee was constituted in the year 2015, in pursuance to Court orders, convened its various meetings but, the Court observed, no decision was taken till the Court intervened. “Court reminded the authorities on November 25 this year as to what steps were taken by the authorities in terms of communication dated Feb-11, 2016”, the DB said.
The status report said that recommendations, forwarded by the Committee were discussed in the meeting threadbare and the Committee has asked for some modifications to be incorporated in the J&K Education Department rules 2010 notified SRO 123 dated March-18, 2010.
“What modifications are required to be incorporated in the rules of 2010, have not been delineated in the status report”, DB said and directed the Commissioner/ Secretary to Government Education Department to file affidavit indicating therein as to what are the proposed modification, which are to be incorporated in the rules of 2010 and which type of administrative orders are required to be passed. Court directed the official to file the affidavit before next date of hearing on this issue.
The Court directed the Crime Branch to conclude the investigation in multi-crore scam in the ETT colleges throughout the State at the earliest.
After the perusal of the report of Inspector General of Police Crime Branch in which some details have been given about the conduct of investigation and filing of report u/s 173 CrPC before the court of competent jurisdiction, court observed that Crime Branch has yet to do many things in bringing the matter to its logical conclusion. “We expect that the investigation in respect of other allegations will lso be concluded at the earliest”, said the HC.
The Bench directed the Crime Branch to inform the court on next date about the steps taken for completing the investigation. “The IGP Crime Branch to file status to file status report before next date of hearing about the steps taken for completion of investigation in respect of other cases as well”, read the court order.
The details contained in the status report filed by IGP Crime Branch Jammu revealed that charge-sheets for the sessions 2003-2005, 2004-2006, 2005-2007 & 2006-2008 in FIR 36/2013 under Sections 420(cheating) 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471(using a forged document), 120-B (criminal conspiracy) RPC read with Section 5(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act 2006 have already been produced before the Special Judge of Anti-corruption Jammu under four challans.
The details of status report further revealed that investigation in respect of session 2007-2009 has been finalized and chargesheet has been produced before the court recently on December 13 against 7 promoters of ETT institutes among them Janak Raj Bharti of Jammu Educational Society, promoter of Shankaracharya ETT Institute of Jammu as also against the then Director Academics BOSE Jammu Sheikh Bashir Ahmad.
In addition to this IGP Crime, Jammu further said that the examination records pertaining to session 2008-2010 has revealed that two batches of ETT courses in 2008-2010 (General) & 2008-2010 (court cases) were started by the BOSE authorities and out of 60 ETT institutes established by the promoters in the said sessions, records in respect of 48 ETT institutes have been scrutinized and examination of records in respect of remaining 12 ETTs is going on. “After completion of examination of the records of aforesaid institutes, investigation of session 2008-2010 will be concluded”, IGP’s report read.
DB had directed the Commissioner/Secretary Education to file his response to the communication delivered to him by Director School Education, Kashmir (DSEK) and inform the court about the steps taken in respect of recommendations made by the committee which is headed by the DSEK.
It may be mentioned here that the investigation into the scam is being carried out by Crime Branch Kashmir as well as by Crime Branch Jammu in connection with two FIRs registered-one at CB Jammu and one at CB Kashmir and court is monitoring the investigation in which till date various revelations has come before the court about the bungling and irregularities in ETT Colleges throughout the State.
In one of the reports, it is alleged that the candidates were lured and amounts, ranging from Rs 45,000 to Rs 80,000 were extracted from each one of them through touts for providing them degrees and certificates by these ETT colleges.
Enquiry report further alleged that these institutions were allowed and permitted to run the courses without issuance of NOC from the State Government, which is granted after inspection of these colleges.
As court has already held that insatiable human greed has caused immense damage to our educational system as such the whole country will become nation of block heads, thus making its future dark.
Another report filed before the court also revealed that a mafia in league with BOSE authorities is involved in this huge scandal and almost 480 colleges are operating in the entire state out of which 80 are in Kashmir Division and 320 colleges are in Jammu Division and two FIRs have been registered with regard to ETT scam as one in Kashmir and another in Jammu Division.
In one of the communication sent by Chairman BOSE to IGP Crime because of the enquiry report of Joint Secretary BOSE and offence u/s 120-B (Criminal Conspiracy) has been added to the FIRs, which would mean that a conspiracy was allegedly hatched by the BOSE authorities with the owners of ETT institutes resulting into registering of FIR at Crime Branch Srinagar as well as Crime Branch Jammu.
Subsequently various college owners and some Board officials have been held guilty during the investigation conducted by Crime Branch and action as per law has been initiated against them and outcome of action taken is being submitted to the court from time to time.
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