Finance
New Delhi:
A plea has been filed before the Delhi High Court, seeking direction to the authorities to investigate the selection of 35 newly-recruited principals of Delhi government schools. The plea alleges that they were selected on the basis of “forged and fabricated documents.”
The public interest litigation alleges that the 35 candidates maliciously misrepresented themselves and were illegally selected. It further claims that the Delhi government’s Department of Education failed miserably to scrutinize the requisite documents submitted by them, leading to their erroneous selections.
During the hearing, the counsel representing petitioner Navendu Charitable Trust requested time to include the individuals who are being accused in the case.
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Sanjeev Narula granted the petitioner’s counsel the time sought and listed the matter for further hearing on October 18.
The Delhi government was represented through its standing counsel Santosh Kumar Tripathi and lawyer Arun Panwar.
The petition alleged that while some of these candidates submitted fake Economically Weaker Section (EWS) certificates for their selection despite having an annual family income above ₹ 8 lakh, others took advantage of Other Backward Class (OBC) reservation and presented fake experience documents.
The plea said the petitioner could only trace these candidates but there might be a lot more misrepresentation and illegal selection.
“The erroneous and wrong selection has resulted in the rejection of numerous deserving candidates, which constitutes a violation of Article 16 of the Constitution. These candidates are for probation period and withdrawing more than ₹ 1.75 lakh (monthly) salary and if they get permanent, the procedure for investigation will become more complex,” the plea said.
“Due to the scam, the actual deserving employees are suffering and unemployment is one of the utmost issues in India and amongst this, high unemployment rate this despicable fraud is happening,” it alleged.
The petition further said school principals hold utmost responsibility for the future of numerous children and society can never tolerate corruption in the selection of candidates for the post.
The plea alleged that the Delhi government’s education department has not fulfilled its responsibility to verify all the records submitted by the selected candidates. Due to this alleged carelessness and irresponsibility, they have selected these 35 and other misrepresented candidates for the post of principal.
