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Teachers in dock yet to submit papers for verification, minister warns of action
PATNA Bihar’s education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary has warned that the teachers appointed between 2006 and 2015 upload their eligibility documents for verification on the online portal or be ready to face action, which could render their appointments illegal
PATNA
Bihar’s education minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary has warned that the teachers appointed between 2006 and 2015 upload their eligibility documents for verification on the online portal or be ready to face action, which could render their appointments illegal.
The fresh deadline for uploading the scanned copies of documents is July 20.
“If the teachers don’t upload the documents, it will be assumed they have nothing to say in this regard and due process will follow as per rules,” he said, adding that so far 1.25 lakh teachers had not provided their documents for verification despite repeated reminders.
Earlier, Bihar’s vigilance investigation bureau’s (VIB) has expressed inability to complete its probe into the appointments even after over five years since the Patna High Court ordered the investigation. The VIB has cited education department’s failure to provide missing folders. The department, in turn, blamed non-cooperation by many recruiting agencies under the panchayati raj system.
In January this year, the state government shifted the onus of document verification on teachers themselves.
The HC bench of the then chief justice L Narasimha Reddy and justice Sudhir Singh, while ordering a vigilance probe in 2015, had observed: “The extent to which the candidates with fake certificates have been appointed as teachers in the past decade is a matter of deep concern. The state government has soft-pedalled the issue for the past one decade… We direct the director general, vigilance, to immediately swing into action and verify the genuineness of certificates of the teachers who have been appointed since 2006.”
The court had also expressed displeasure over the delay in the completion of probe and even threatened action.
“Despite repeated reminders form the education department and the probe agency, most teachers have not made the documents available. Now we are giving them one final chance to upload their documents, failing which it will be assumed they have nothing to say,” the minister said.
Earlier, director (primary education) Ranjit Kumar Singh had written to all the district education officers (DEOs) and district programme officers (DPOs) about an alternative mechanism for verification of documents of teachers’ appointment made between 2006 and 2015, necessitated due to non-cooperation by many recruiting agencies under the panchayati raj system.
“Prime facie, their appointment will be considered illegal and irregular and suitable action will be taken if the teachers don’t comply. They will be served show cause and their service will be terminated and the process initiated for recovery of salary drawn by them as per the provisions in the public demand recovery act,” said the letter from the director.
The department has now decided to verify documents before issuing appointment letters to teachers. “The government is already in the process of appointing nearly 1.25 lakh teachers. Now, the effort is to monitor the recruitment process online through a system located centrally in Patna without diluting the role of PRIs and urban local bodies,” said the minister.
