The Central Vigilance Commission has asked the CBI to conduct inquiry against two senior officials of the AICTE, whose recommendations are necessary to allow a new institution to open and existing ones to run. Chetan Chauhan reports.
The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to conduct inquiry against two senior officials of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), whose recommendations are necessary to allow a new institution to open and existing ones to run.
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It is the first major crackdown from the country’s corruption watchdog against allegedly corrupt officials in AICTE, a statutory body to regulate over 15,000 technical education institutions in the country.
The CVC has earlier asked Chief Vigilance Officer of AICTE to conduct inquiries into complaints of irregular approvals given to some institutions like the one in Patiala, which got approval after the council’s deadline had expired. But it is apparently for the first time in the past few years that CVC has asked the CBI to investigate on the basis of its preliminary inquiry.
Senior government officials told HT that the CVC in a communication to the HRD ministry informed that the CBI had been asked to conduct inquiry into allegations of corruption against two officials — a regional director based in central India and a senior advisor in the AICTE headquarters. It is difficult to run an institution without approval of six regional directors and the advisors at AICTE headquarters.
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Incidentally, the AICTE has not transferred the regional director, against whom the inquiry has been initiated, last year when five others were transferred. The advisor had recently come on deputation from a Delhi-based university.
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Incidentally, the AICTE has not transferred the regional director, against whom the inquiry has been initiated, last year when five others were transferred. The advisor had recently come on deputation from a Delhi-based university.
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A CVC official, who was not willing to be named, confirmed that a letter in this regard has been written to the technical education wing of the HRD ministry but refused to divulge details regarding charges of corruption.
Following the communication, AICTE chairperson RA Yadav reportedly called a meeting of all regional directors last week and asked them to be careful. He also warned them of strict action, if complaints of corruption were levelled, an AICTE official said on the condition of anonymity.
Attempts to reach Yadav have failed. He did not respond to a questionnaire regarding the CBI inquiry e-mailed to him on his official address on Tuesday. He was also not available over telephone in his office and on his mobile.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
