Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Sept 8: The Vigilance Organization Jammu has unearthed a major fraud in promotion of Government school teachers as Masters on fake or invalid B Ed Degrees and booked two former Directors of School Education (IAS officers), and a number of senior officers including KAS, Chief Education Officers, Zonal Education Officers and others in the case.
Two separate FIRs in this connection have been registered in the Police Station Vigilance Organization Jammu for the acts of omissions and commissions on the part of IAS officers P K Pole and Tushar Kanti Sharma ( then Directors of School Education Jammu), KAS officers R A Inqalabi (then Additional Secretary School Education Department), Dr Narupa Rai and Susheel Kumar (then Personnel Officers in the Directorate of School Education Jammu), S K Gandotra and Saif Ali (then Joint Directors School Education Jammu), other accused officers and hundreds of beneficiary teachers.
The Vigilance verification has revealed that these accused officers under a criminal conspiracy hatched among themselves, illegally promoted beneficiary teachers as Masters on the basis of invalid B Ed Degrees in utter violation of Government order Number 252-HE of 2012, dated 30-05-2012, which clearly laid down that the degree obtained through Distance Education Mode from Off Campuses, established by the State universities beyond their territorial jurisdiction, shall not be recognized.
Despite having knowledge of the said Government order, verification established that, then Directors of School Education and other officers as Chairman and members, respectively of the Departmental Promotion Committees, in order to confer undue benefit of illegal promotion to the beneficiary teachers, got their cases recommended by the concerned CEOs, ZEOs and cleared their promotion in DPC held on April 23, 2013 and February 8, 2014.
Around 2500 Teachers were promoted as Masters in the DPC on April 23, 2013, wherein then Director School Education Jammu, P K Pole was the Chairman and then Addl Secy School Education R A Inqlabi, then Personnel Officer Dr Narupa Rai and then Joint Director School Education Jammu S K Gandotra were the members.
Similarly, on February 8, 2014, more than 1100 Teachers were promoted as Masters by the DPC, headed by then Director School Education Jammu Tushar Kanti Sharma as its Chairman while then Additional Secretary R A Inqlabi, Personnel Officer Susheel Kumar and then Joint Director School Education Saif Ali were members of the committee.
Verifications disclosed that more than fifty percent beneficiary teachers in these two DPCs, managed their promotion on invalid or fake B Ed degrees, obtained from unrecognized universities. A big number of beneficiary teachers were possessing “Aadib” and “Kameel” from Jamia Urdu University, Aligarh and the promotion was accorded to them by treating these courses equivalent to B Ed notwithstanding the fact that degrees of this university are not recognized even by the Government of Uttar Pradesh.
Similarly, invalid B Ed degrees from several other un-recognized universities were produced by hundreds of others beneficiary teachers, who claimed to have secured the same through Distance Mode of Education.
Besides invalid, a number of B Ed degrees have turned out to be fake as the Vigilance team, during verifications, was told by some of the universities that no such course of Bachelor in Education was available with them through Distance mode. Priest University, Kerala, is one of such universities, which does not offer any such course but some teachers had managed promotion on basis of B Ed degree from this institute, sources explained.
Verifications have revealed that the concerned ZEOs of respective Zones made entries of these invalid and fake Degrees, which were obtained by the beneficiary teachers from un-recognized universities, in their service books and thereafter concerned CEOs of respective districts forwarded the case of beneficiary teachers to the Director School Education Jammu for promotion without verifying the degrees.
Thereafter, the DPCs under the Chairmanship of then DSEs, cleared their cases of promotion without verifying the genuineness and authenticity of B Ed degrees of the beneficiary teachers thus committing the fraud.
After preliminary inquiry and verifications, the Vigilance Organization has registered FIR number 29/2015 and FIR Number 30/2015 against the accused for the offences punishable under Section 5(1) (d) read with Section 5(2) J&K Prevention of Corruption Act 2006 and Sections 420, 467, 468 and 120-B RPC at Police Station Vigilance Organization Jammu for further investigations.
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