Bihar: Probe by the state vigilance into the appointment of teachers continues.

 

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The Patna High Court had ordered the State Vigilance Investigation Bureau to expeditiously verify the forged/fabricated/ false certificates degrees while hearing a PIL filed by one Ranjit Pandit in 2014. The petitioner Ranjit Pandit had stated that the state government had appointed around 4 lakh school teachers since 2006 but many of them had submitted forged qualifications to secure the jobs.

The State Vigilance Investigation Bureau (VIB) has been investigating the school teachers in Bihar allegedly appointed on forged documents for almost five years now.

So far, 337 FIRS involving 903 teachers across the state have been registered by the Vigilance Investigation Bureau.  As a result, the department of education has terminated the services of 639 teachers and salary has been stopped for some others.

The progress of the investigation has been slow and over 43,000 folders carrying recruitment details are still missing from the recruiting agencies. As these missing folders have not reached VIB 2,600 FIRS have been lodged against recruiting agencies under the Panchayati raj institutions. The number of FIRs are likely to increase once the remaining folders are handed over to the investigating agency.

Considering the magnitude of the fraud involved Patna HC in 2015 proposed to give general amnesty to all those who voluntarily resigned. As per the notice, if any teacher who had secured an appointment using fake or fabricated certificate submits their resignation within 15 days from the date of the notice, they would be granted immunity from prosecution. As the teachers showed no interest in owning up to their mistakes, the court was forced to extend the deadline by 2 weeks. However, only 3000 teachers with fake degrees resigned out of which 1660 teachers resigned under the general amnesty scheme.

The Patna HC bench which has been closely monitoring the investigation from time to time raised the issue of delay on Monday during the hearing on the PIL and directed the state government and the VIB to furnish all details on action taken against teachers appointed on forged documents within six weeks.