UT sits on CBI report received in Oct 2010

The CBI had also asked the UT to keep it informed about what action it took on the report. However,the Administration has since only twiddled its toes in the matter. The CBI’s Anti-Crime Branch,Chandigarh,had conducted a limited inquiry into the matter following a complaint given to them by city resident Hemant Goswami in 2009. Since Chandigarh Police was already investigating the allegations of bribe demands by officials involved in the recruitment process,the CBI focused on two other aspects of the scam mentioned in the complaint — errors in compiling of results and change in criteria during the course of the recruitment.

The CBI’s detailed report (accessed by the Newsline) shows that following the compilation of the results of the written examination,hundreds of deserving candidates were left out from being called for the interview. Instead,candidates with much lower marks were called for the interview. The CBI report gives subject-wise details of the deserving candidates left out from the recruitment process.

The Education Department had outsourced the task of checking and compiling the results of the written exam to the Department of Electronics Accreditation For Computer Courses (DOEACC). The CBI states that DOEACC blundered in a big way in the compilation of results despite the whole process being monitored by senior UT officers.

“DOEACC needs to be penalised for performing tasks assigned to it in a faulty manner. The officials of the administration cannot claim to have abdicated their responsibility of ensuring error-free and transparent recruitment and shift the entire blame to DOEACC. The responsibility of the observers and the concerned officials of the Education Department needs to be fixed for the lapses,” stated the report.

“In view of the widespread errors in the compilation of results,it is recommended that the results of the instant recruitment be recompiled through a neutral and competent agency other than DOEACC. In the eventuality of the recompiled results tallying with the already compiled results,the teachers recruited be retained while in the eventuality of any differences,corrective measures be taken against those found responsible for the lapses,including functionaries of DOEACC,” added the report.

The CBI also found that that the Administration arbitrarily changed the criteria for recruitment several times during the course of the process. The first advertisement issued in 2007 for selection of 536 teachers was amended twice in May 2009 and July 2009. The Advisor to the Administrator K K Sharma could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.