BHOPAL: Is something fishy going in Higher Education Department? The question is being asked because higher education department is not responding to several applications filed under the Right to Information Act.
In a latest, chief information commissioner AK Shukla has asked the higher education department to provide a copy of probe report of recruitment of professors in 2009-10 within one month to the applicant.
RTI activist Ajay Dubey had filed an application in March 2017 seeking information about controversial appointments of professors but higher education department officials were not providing it.
The information commission has imposed penalty on the information officer concerned and has given the responsibility of delivering the notice to the principal secretary of the department. Appointment of professors that was done in 2009-10 had gathered a lot of heat and dust due to lack of transparency in the whole process. Not just this allegation of corruption were also raised over the whole process.
The information commission has commented in his judgement that information officer of education department did not even come to attend the hearings.
Besides appointment of professors, there are several other applications related to appointments of assistant professors as well that are not being entertained by the higher education department. The higher education department is not providing information about sanctioned posts of assistant professors, librarian and sports teacher- information that it has submitted to High Court on affidavit. An activist has filed an application under the RTI Act to provide him the basis of information that the department has submitted in the court. “There is no transparency in Higher Education Department. Common things that should have been in the public domain are not being provided by the department raising suspicion on the overall process the department adopts,” said DP Singh, who has filed several applications related to appointment of assistant professors through PSC. Singh said that he had asked for the documents of the candidates that have been selected for the post of assistant professors through PSC but the higher education department is not providing them- these documents should have been in the public domain.
There are cases going on in the courts related to appointment of assistant professors. Applicant had also asked about number of sanctioned posts in the department after partition of MP and Chhatisgarh. This should have formed the basis of sanctioned posts in higher education department that leads to formation of reservation roster. Most of the recent court cases related to appointment are related to following of reservation roster- this is also not made public nor is being provided under the RTI Act.
Had the higher education department made basic information available in public domain there would not have been number of court cases that are going on now, said Singh.
