JAMMU: Although the State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) booked several senior functionaries of the Education Department including two IAS and three KAS officers for promoting a large number of teachers on the basis of alleged fake B. Ed degrees yet the inquiry conducted by a group of principals of Education Department has almost given clean chit to all and recommended adjustment of the promotees.
On 1st September 2015, the SVO, after 8-month long probe registered two FIRs against IAS officers P K Pole and Tushar Kanti Sharma ( the then Directors of School Education Jammu), KAS officers R A Inqalabi (the then Additional Secretary School Education Department), Dr Narupa Rai and Susheel Kumar (the then Personnel Officers in the Directorate of School Education Jammu) S K Gandotra and Saif Ali (the then Joint Directors School Education Jammu), besides other accused officers and hundreds of beneficiary teachers.
The SVO verification revealed that the 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 No 252-HE of 2012, dated May 30, 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 recognised.
Despite having knowledge of this Government Order, verification established that, the 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 2,000 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, the then Personnel Officer Dr Narupa Rai and the then Joint Director School Education Jammu S K Gandotra were the members.
Similarly, on February 8, 2014, over 1193 teachers were promoted as Masters by the DPC, headed by the then Director School Education Jammu Tushar Kanti Sharma as its Chairman while the then Additional Secretary R A Inqlabi, Personnel Officer Susheel Kumar and the then Joint Director School Education Saif Ali were members of the committee.
The SVO found that that more than 50 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 were 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 other 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 said.
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 cases 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.
The Vigilance has registered FIR No 29/2015 and FIR No 30/2015 against the accused for 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.
However, the five-member probe committee constituted by the Directorate of School Education on August 13, 2015 has submitted its findings to the government after five month long probe in January 2016 vide letter No DSEJ/NG/M 59034 which reads as “The committee has examined the list and has found 983 cases eligible out of 1195 and needs to be adjusted as Masters. This office is not in position to declare their degrees as fake without obtaining the genuines of the degrees from concerned universities. It is further submitted that some professionals be engaged for ascertaining the genuniness iof the degrees acquired from Jamia Urdu Aligarh and BSP (UP, 125 promotees have been found, who have acquired their degrees without obtaining permission and availing any type of leave. The report is submitted for favour of information and further necessary action.”
The five member committee consisted of Shadi Lal Tengloo, Field Advisor, State Institute of Education (SIE) as head. Other members included Nath Ram, Field Advsor, SIE, Jammu, Baldev Singh, Principal (DSE-J), Vinod Kumar Gupta, Principal (DSE-J) and Madan Mohan Khajuria, Principal (DSE-J).
Naresh Kumar, President of J&K Post Graduate Teachers Association (PGTA) said, “We will not allow the fake degree holders to get promotions.” “Whether it was Congress or BJP, the same group of persons was benefitted,”. “We met Education Minister Naeem Akhtar in October 2015 and he had assured us that action will be taken within 15 days. However, the present government has also decided to favour the beneficiaries and the accused IAS and KAS officers,” Naresh said.
He further added that to shield the corrupt, the government is even denying the Vigilance report and its two FIRs which state that the degrees have been found fake.