PAU board in a flap over member’s flip-flop

Gajnipur,wrote to the V-C,Dr MS Kang,that proceedings of the decisions taken in the meeting of the board were not properly recorded and implemented. Sources said he pressed for inclusion of Brar’s case in the agenda. However,in the following letter to Dr Kang,he withdrew his earlier letter. A copy of this letter was also forwarded to the registrar-cum-secretary of the board of management. All three letters bore Gajnipur’s signatures.

However,he told Brar that he never wrote for withdrawal of the first letter,and his signature on the second representation was forged. Brar then asked for BoM meeting documents under the RTI Act and later alleged in the information commission that Gajnipur’s signatures were forged.

Interestingly,Gajnipur also wrote to State Information Commission (SIC) Surinder Singh,seconding Brar,and asked for a thorough inquiry.

Brar placed on record a report by a Chandigarh-based forensic expert that said Gajnipur’s signatures were forged. However,since the report was prepared by a private expert,the commission took the opinion of the Director,Forensic Science Laboratory,Punjab. When the state lab also reported forgery,the SIC asked the VC to get an inquiry conducted and take necessary action. The complainant was told that he was also free to approach the court of law for redressing his grievances,if any.

Subsequently,the VC set up an inquiry committee comprising Dr RS Sidhu,Dean,College of Basic Sciences,and Dr Satish Narula. Gajnipur’s lie was nailed in the first meeting of the inquiry committee itself,when he was also shown,apart from the three letters,the representation that he gave to the information commission,saying that his signatures were forged. Surprisingly,in his statement before the probe panel,he admitted that the first three representations bore his signatures,but he was made to sign on the one written to the information commission while he was busy campaigning for the Kahnuwan by-election.

Sources said Gajnipur took a U-turn when he came to know that senior PAU officers had refused to trust the state lab’s report and had decided to get the signatures verified from experts outside Punjab and even in the United States.

Meanwhile,the information commission,which had closed the case after recommending inquiry,reopened it last week after receiving the probe report. The SIC said as Gajnipur has admitted that no forgery was committed,it was not necessary to take statements of the VC and the Registrar,and disposed of the case. Gajnipur told The Indian Express that it was Brar’s fight and he did not want to comment on it. He said Brar came to him seeking support while he was campaigning in Kahnuwan and he signed the letter to the SIC in a jiffy. “Besides that I do not remember anything about the case,” he added.