Over 70,000 of the 3.52 lakh contract teachers in Bihar, appointed between 2006 and 2015, face the prospect of losing their jobs as their тАЬappointment folders are missingтАЭ which continues to haunt the Bihar government and thousands of teachers alike.
So far over one thousand first information reports (FIRs) involving over 2,200 teachers have been filed by the State Vigilance Bureau as over 77,000 folders containing documents of as many teachers are yet to be found. As per the 2015 Patna high court order the тАЬmissing foldersтАЭ are to be handed over to the bureau for investigation.
The case involves the alleged тАЬillegalтАЭ appointment of teachers between 2006 and 2015 through Panchayat-Raj (elementary) institutions and urban local bodies in a decentralised way.
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The state education department last year put the onus of uploading their documents on the specified portal of the working teachers whose folders are missing, however, despite giving several deadlines, the process could not be completed.
According to a letter from the director of primary education sent to all the district education officers (DEOs) last year, тАЬIf the documents are not uploaded, it will be assumed that they have nothing to say regarding the validity of their (teachers) appointment and considering it prima facile irregular/illegal, the process will be initiated for their removal and recovery of salary paid through the recruiting agencies.тАЭ
The case
A total of 3.52 lakh teachers, including 2082 librarians, were appointed in Bihar, between 2006 and May 2015. Of them, 3.11 lakh were elementary teachers, including 1.04 lakh Shiksha Mitras appointed at тВ╣1500/month honorarium during the previous governmentтАЩs regime and later elevated to the rank of тАШPanchayatтАЩ teachers in which maximum cases of forgery were suspected. A public interest litigation (PIL) was also in the high court against it.
Hearing the matter, the HC bench of the then chief justice L Narasimha Reddy and Justice Sudhir Singh, while ordering a vigilance probe, in May 2015, observed: тАЬThe extent to which the candidates with fake certificates were appointed as teachers is a matter of deep concern. The state government has soft-pedalled the issue for the past decade.
The HC directed the department of vigilance (DOV) to immediately take action.
тАЬWe direct the director general, vigilance cell, to immediately swing into action and cause verification of the genuineness of the certificates of the teachers who have been appointed from 2006 onwards till date,тАЭ it observed.
The court gave amnesty to teachers to voluntarily resign from the post. However, only 3000 teachers resigned under the amnesty scheme and later.
Way forward
Out of 35,2927 teachers appointed, the folders for 77,021 are missing. This raises suspicion about their bonafide. The vigilance team has filed 1,046 FIRs involving 2,216 teachers with Gaya having the highest number at 213, followed by Saran (168), Munger (142) and Begusarai (127).
DG (vigilance) Alok Raj, who took over earlier this month, said all the district programme officers (establishment) were written again to make the missing folders available while the additional chief secretary (education) and additional chief secretary (vigilance department) have been apprised of it.
тАЬThe bureau has also written to the ACS (education) about the non-availability of the merit list. It has sent details to all the district SSPs and SPs for the arrest of the accused involved. The education department has also been written for action,тАЭ the DG said.
ACS (education) Dipak Kumar Singh said that as the number of missing folders was high and assuming all of them were forged was тАШnot justifiedтАЩ.
тАЬWe will hold another meeting (with the vigilance team) to find a middle path. Sacking so many teachers on the assumption that all of them may have forged documents could lead to further litigation on a large scale. The department has asked the teachers to submit their documents so that their prospects could be decided on that basis,тАЭ he added.
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A senior official of the department said that the situation has reached a stage where it would be tough to sack over 77,000 teachers.
тАЬAfter all, the safekeeping of the documents was the responsibility of the government. The teachers, having already worked for so many years and enjoyed pay hikes, are now an organised lot. They are wary that providing documents could land them in trouble. There are chances they may provide genuine certificates now after obtaining the job on fake documents to affect the merit list.тАЭ
However, тАЬgetting merit lists 15-16 years later from recruiting agencies at the panchayat level is not possible,тАЭ he added.
Lesson learnt
The education department is now planning to go in for future recruitments of teachers in a centralised way. State education minister Chandrashekhar is particular about changing the decentralised system and instead preparing one merit list for the entire state.
тАЬIn the past, a candidate with fewer marks could get a job in one Panchayat, while those with higher marks but below the highest marks could not get it in other districts. One merit list will give the candidates options to join wherever they are interested and eligible for,тАЭ said a department official.
Bihar still has large-scale vacancies in schools and the teacher-eligibility qualified candidates were agitating for months for exams recruitment.
The government plans to first fill the posts in secondary and higher secondary schools, where there is a huge shortage after the upgradation of secondary schools, and later go in for primary schools.
тАЬThe new mechanism is being worked out in view of the lessons learnt from past experiences that it is also important to improve the quality of education in schools, which is directly linked to the quality of teachers,тАЭ another official said.
