In the wake of the Kolkata teacher recruitment scam case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has trained its focus on a purportedly similar scam at an educational institution in Pune district.
The ED took cognizance of the case owing to the alleged large-scale money laundering featured in the teacher recruitment case in Pune educational institutions. In 2019, teachers were allegedly recruited on the basis of forged documents at an educational institute in Akurdi, Pune district.
Pune Zilla Parishad Extension Officer Kisan Bhujbal, who had exposed the bogus teacher recruitment scam, has been summoned by the ED on August 2, for recording his statement on suspected money laundering in the recruitment of teachers.
The investigation had revealed that the sham recruitment was done in connivance with some education officials.
A case was registered in the Bund Garden police station on October 19, 2019, and the former education officer of Pune Zilla Parishad, Mushtaq Sheikh, the former education officer of Pune Municipal Corporation, Dattatray Shendkar, the administrative officer Ramchandra Jadhav, and the then education officer of the education department of Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, Meenakshi Raut, were named.
Apart from that, the directors of these institutions too are included. This educational institute showed that some teachers were fraudulently recruited at their institute at Uruli Kanchan.
The recruitment of several such teachers who received salaries through government aid has resulted in a loss of Rs 50 crore to the exchequer.
“The recruitment of 23 teachers was bogus. On that basis, the salary was withdrawn from the state government. A few years later, the same teachers were re-inducted into the institute at Akurdi. The extension officer of the Zilla Parishad, Kisan Bhujbal, had exposed the case of bogus teacher recruitment,” said an ED intelligence officer probing the case.
The state education department was sitting on a multicrore recruitment scam and following a prolonged internal inquiry, had filed a complaint with the Bund Garden police station, alleging that at least 28 people, including a few senior officials from its own department, had colluded in recruiting teachers to aided schools.
The scam was facilitated, allegedly with forged documents and schools being pressurised to recruit the candidates as teachers who were to be paid from a grant received from the state government. Prerna School in Dhankawadi and Navghar Education Institute in Nigdi were coerced into recruiting the ineligible teachers.
The first complaint was filed by an official from the Pune Zilla Parishad’s education department against 28 people, including the then deputy directors in the department—Meenakshi Raut and Ramchandra Jadhav. While Raut is now education officer in Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), Jadhav is retired.
According to the complaint, the ruse was simple—with the state announcing a ban on hiring teachers from grants given by them in 2012, the accused found another route to get some candidates on the government’s payroll. The complaint further added that the candidates were already working as teachers in certain schools prior to the ban.
Documents were allegedly forged to show that they were indeed working but did not receive salaries from government grants. The transfer of such teachers, who were already in the system, was however, not banned by the government resolution.
Officials at the Zilla Parishad alleged a strong nexus between government officials, teachers and educational institutions involved in the scam. Police investigation revealed the names of around 28 people in the first complaint but over 150 people directly or indirectly are involved in the scam and the amount of the scam is expected to be in excess of Rs 50 crore.
Zilla Parishad officials were shocked that the accused involved in the scam had managed to suppress it for so long. While the state government had banned the recruitment of teachers to aided schools from 2012, it had allowed the transfer of teachers from non-aided to aided schools, after which they became eligible for salaries from government aid.
The accused in the scam showed backdated recruitment for some of the teachers involved in the scam, who were subsequently transferred into aided schools. Some of these officials showed the recruitment of these teachers on the basis of forged documents to non-aided educational institutes in 2010. Later, government documents were used to show the same teachers being transferred to aided schools in 2014.
