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Journalism of Courage
After investigating the alleged multi-crore PTU financial irregularities case for over two years, the Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) has said that further investigation in this case would be a waste of time of the department and the case will not stand during the trial in court.
In the 72-page cancellation report (the copy of which was procured by The Indian Express) filed in court on August 3, VB says that presenting a challan in the court in this case would also be a waste of time and the case should be considered for the cancellation.
The report also reveals that the VB Investigating officer (IO) had probed nine allegations made in the six-page FIR.
The reports states that IO, DSP Dalbir Singh of VB (Hoshiarpur), found no solid evidence in any of the allegations most of which were dismissed on the basis of the explanations and documents submitted by the alleged accused as well as the records of the Board of Governors (BoG), PTU.
Among the nine allegations, the major allegations were appointments made to senior posts in the PTU and paying around Rs 25 crore to a consultant, who was also appointed in alleged violation of rules.
Over appointment of Dr Nachhatar Singh and Dr R P Bhardwaj, who were also among accused, on the posts of Advisor and Director, respectively, it was alleged that appointments were made without advertisement and no circular about such recruitment at PTU was sent to other universities. But the VB cancellation report has concluded that they were appointed on the basis rights given to PTU V-C by the BoG and no financial loss occurred to the PTU with their appointments. The report further says that while the appointment of Dr R P Bhardwaj was done without any advertisement or sending any circular, but he was appointed on contract basis for three months on a salary of Rs 25,000 and his appointment was approved by the BoG.
About the appointment of Vishavdeep, Assistant Registrar (Foreign Languages), VB report says that it was also as per the approval of BoG.
VB in its FIR had alleged that former V-C Dr Arora’s classmate, Parveen Kumar, who was appointed as consultant under the name of his firm — NETiit, was appointed without any advertisement and even a share of admission fee was paid to this firm.
The cancellation report mentions that that Rs 24.40 crore was paid to NETiit during financial year 2011-12 to 2014-15. It adds that regarding doubts over services rendered by NETiit, nothing wrong has been found and no such thing was pointed out in the audit report of the PTU over the matter.
The cancellation report also mentions that “groupism” in the PTU also led to several misunderstandings due to which 19 complaints/allegations were filed against the former V-C, out of which 10 were found false and nine were investigated.
The report says that in the investigation these was no proper evidence found concerning these nine allegations. It says that the cancellation report, which was sent to the Chief Director, VB, on July 29 for nod to file in the court, was received back with his permission on July 31.
Meanwhile, some PTU officials who had submitted their affidavits to VB during the investigation of the case, have said that they will challenge this cancellation report in the court.
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