Officers running state, ministers have no control: Akshay Jain on minority school approval controversy

We received a complaint from government sources that on January 28 there was a login onto the portal and the supporting documents were approved from 3 pm onwards. Then on January 29, 30, and February 2, a total of 75 schools were given this certificate.

We got information from our sources that the officers thought, ‘There is no minister now. We don’t know who the next minister will be. So let’s give these approvals.’

There is commercial value, these certificates cost lakhs of rupees each. The certificates also give a lot of benefits. The schools have direct minority admissions, they don’t have RTE, teachers don’t need TET, promotion rules are different, they get funds for infrastructure. We also got information that the login id and password of the portal where the certificates are issued were changed a few hours before I made the information public.

What do you have to say about the functioning of the department?

Ministers usually give a note for these kinds of stays. But here the minister (Manikrao Kokate) printed a proper letter, so he must have had some information to not give approvals to the schools. There must be some kind of a complaint with the minister and some irregularities must have come in front of him.

How can the officials act in such an insensitive way? It is completely shocking. The officers are running the state and the ministers don’t have any control. This is a big threat to the democratic system.

Do you think there is any involvement of the schools in this?

The schools get benefits. We all know the level at which malpractices happen and I don’t need to talk about that. Their modus operandi starts when they have to get any permission. The other important thing is that it is not the work of one secretary. Milind Shenoy’s (deputy secretary, Minorities Development Department) sign is there on the certificates but he is not alone.

An agent lobby functions between the schools-colleges and the officers. The money transfer happens through the medium of the agents.

What is your demand now?

The inquiry of this matter will now go to Ruchesh Jayavanshi, secretary of Minority Development Department. But the officers of the department are themselves involved in this, so my demand is that the investigation should be conducted by a retired judge, so that action is taken.