Jupinderjit Singh
Chandigarh, May 5
The Vigilance Bureau has started a probe into a 16-year-old alleged teacher recruitment scam. Reportedly, many of the 9,998 teachers got the job on the basis of false experience certificates.
The VB registered a complaint regarding the recruitment first in January 2019 during the Capt Amarinder Singh regime, but the inquiry didn’t take off.
Now, the Vigilance has begun the probe after getting fresh complaints.
VB officials today questioned a number of officials of the Education Department, including gazetted officers, clerks and assistants for verification of the certificates.
Sources said the probe started in Gurdaspur as around 1,000 recruited teachers belong to this district.
The recruitment was done during the SAD-BJP rule and later, complaints were filed that many candidates had furnished false/fake experience certificates to get additional points in recruitment, added the sources.
Officials said it would be a large-scale inquiry as documents of nearly 10 thousand teachers would have to be verified. Statements of the district education officers were recorded.
Hundreds of unemployed teachers have staged protests during the reigns of multiple governments.
The protesters have been seeking employment and the allegation that some persons got jobs on the basis of false experience certificates makes the inquiry significant.
Officials said the persons who issued the false certificates may be booked for fraud along with the candidates.
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