‘Investigate role of successive Education Ministers, Secys’
*Says CB simply collected heap of papers in hush-hush manner
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 11: Passing strictures against the Crime Branch for incomplete, shoddy and selective investigation in the much publicized Elementary Teacher Training (ETT) Institutes scam, Special Judge Anti Corruption Jammu Tahir Khurshid Raina has issued directions for further investigation in the case to ascertain how large number of sham institutions got opened in the nook and corner of the State after 2002 without the approval of the Government and what was the role of successive Education Ministers and also that of Secretaries of the School Education Department and Chairmen of J&K Board of School Education (BOSE).
Pointing out several lapses in the investigation, the Special Judge Anti-Corruption observed, “it appears that there was complete mess prevailing in the ETT sector, the successive Governments, just for the sake of formalities and paper exercise, were issuing simply the guidelines, circulars etc without seeking their implementation”.
“However, as per the enquiry reports, all such institutions were at all not existing on ground and they simply acted as money minting machines with no check and balance in place by the Board or Government agencies on the working of these institutes”, the court said, adding “it was important for the investigator to know as to who granted NOCs to all these institutes and on what basis when they were found existing no-where as per the enquiry reports. These were the important facts to have been investigated in terms of the reports. But the charge-sheet is silent on all these crucial aspects of the case”.
“More important, how these institutions managed such a fraud when the Board authorities were duty bound to ensure proper functioning of the institutes as per the guidelines prescribed. Of course, such a rank scam would not have sustained without the active support and patronage of the then authorities sitting in the Board and the Administrative Department of the education, which was over all supervising authority of the education sector of the State”, the court further said.
The court observed, “another important aspect which has not been sufficiently addressed in the investigation is what prompted the Board and the Government Authorities to open floodgates of ETT schools in J&K which started functioning without any check and balance, policy programme and objective fixed to be achieved. The teachers training programme was very well going on in the State and District Institutes of Education which were meant for grooming and guiding the Government teachers, to be trained to teach the students in a proficient way at the elementary level”.
“It will be travesty of justice if I will venture to frame charge in such a case, based on an incomplete, shoddy and selective investigation. It looks that the Crime Branch, Jammu, has simply, collected some heap of papers, and in a hush-hush manners shown compliance to the various directions of the High Court passed in the PIL”, Special Judge Anti-Corruption Court said, adding “the investigator of the case and the then SSP Crime Branch, under whose supervision the investigation was going on, has virtually played deception with the people who were constrained to approach the High Court through a PIL against this fraud of high magnitude and sought redressal of their grievances”.
Stating that there was no reference to the compliance of High Court directions in the charge-sheets, the Special Judge Anti-Corruption said, “this court is not helpless to be just a mute spectator and fell an easy prey to the trap of sham investigation done in the case. The Code of Criminal Procedure has very well addressed such an eventuality and empowers the Magistrate to direct further investigation in the case, in terms of Section 156(3) CrPC read with Section 173(8) of the Code”.
Laying a roadmap for the Crime Branch to follow in unveiling the truth and unveiling the masked culprits who appear to have managed their escape from the clutches of law in the earlier investigation, the Special Judge Anti-Corruption Court has issued directions to recover and seize the original 22 permission letters alleged to be issued by the accused Bashir Ahmed Dar and R K Jalali and also to get the signatures of those officers on the alleged documents confirmed from FSL to survive the test of legal scrutiny in the court.
The court has further directed the Crime Branch to probe as to why the investigation was done selectively in the context of 22 promoters of the ETT institutes and only few were roped in the case, when apparently the alleged illegal permissions were issued to all the 22 institutes, notwithstanding whether violation or no violation in context of enrollment of the students, infrastructure etc.
The Crime Branch has been further directed to investigate the role of the then Chairman, JKBOSE, M A Charoo, whose emergency powers, envisaged in Section 13(IV) of the Act, 1975, have been referred to in the permission letters and who himself has admitted to have started 2/3 ETT institutes during his tenure that too in violation of the School Education Act, 2002.
“The Crime Branch should also investigate where is the policy decision of the Government to put ETT course in the private sector when said course was simply being run in the Government sector for the teachers of the Government schools and what was the objective to be achieved”, the court said, adding “moreover, it is required to be ascertained why such a large number of sham institutions got opened in the nook and corner of the State after 2002 without the approval of the Government. If not, then why Government allowed this illegality and scandalization to go on unabated and unnoticed”.
“It is in this context the roles of successive Education Ministers since 2000 onwards and also that of the Secretaries Education Department and Chairmen JKBOSE need to be investigated. Why out of 40 institutes inspected by A K Sen Committee, not a single promoter of the institutes was arrayed as an accused. More so, when one man Enquiry Committee described all such institutions as the educational shops which simply sold the diplomas of ETT course to the purchasers from outside the State through touts, why the investigation remained selective and arrayed very miniscule number of the sham promoters out of the promoters of a huge lot of more than 300 as accused in the case”, the court further directed.
Why the touts have not been identified and their role ascertained by the IO? Whether the institutes opened after 2005, got any permission from their respective affiliating agency like Board or University in terms of Government Order No. 446-Edu of 2006 dated 21-09-2006 before start of ETT? and whether those who were first timer in the field have got NOCs from the Government and on what basis the NOCs/permissions were granted by the Administrative Department of Education authorities by virtue of SRO 123, when they all were found in their inspections by the two Enquiry Committees, seriously lacking the norms and standard of NCTE and failed to find any student in these so-called ETT institutes.
The court directed that the order be forwarded to Special DG Crime, UT of J&K to constitute a SIT to be headed by an IPS Officer, not below the rank of SSP for conducting further investigation in the matter. “The further investigation be completed within a period of two months from the date of receipt of this order by the Special DG, Crime and the SIT in-charge is further directed to submit status report of the investigation fortnightly before this court”, read the order passed by the Special Judge Anti-Corruption Jammu.
The compliance report with regard to constitution of the SIT shall be submitted by the Special DG, Crime, J&K within 10 days from the date of receipt of this order, the court concluded.
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