The Patna High Court Monday directed the Director General of Vigilance to verify educational and professional degrees of nearly 40,000 contract teachers — who are suspected of forging their degrees — and submit a compliance report within three weeks. The state government has appointed nearly 3.5 lakh contract teachers at primary, middle and high schools levels since 2006. The court also asked the state government not to deploy such teachers on election duty during the assembly polls. The court’s direction came in response to a PIL filed by Ranjit Pandit, a social worker, in August 2014. Petitioner’s lawyer Dinu Kumar said: “The division bench comprising the Chief Justice has given one week to the DG, Vigilance, to ask all suspect teachers to submit their degrees with the designated vigilance cells. The vigilance department will have to give a compliance report within three weeks”. The court also took exception to the government’s slow progress in verifying the degrees and wondered how mass appointments were made without verification, said Kumar. The court also asked why nearly 25,000 teachers — identified by the government as those with fake degrees — had not been terminated so far. [related-post]
