UT teacher paper sold for Rs 7 lakh

Jaswinder Singh Baidwan

Akhran da mureed
Staff member
For the second time in six years, the recruitment of teachers in Chandigarh has come under a cloud with a Punjab Vigilance Bureau investigation revealing that leaked question papers were sold two to three days prior to the written test last year for Rs 7 lakh each.
In 2009, too, the recruitment of 536 teachers by the UT Administration had led to a CBI case. This time, the Punjab Vigilance Bureau has exposed a scam in the hiring of 1,150 Junior Basic Training (JBT) and Trained Graduate Teacher (TGT) teachers in Chandigarh in January and February last year.
According to the VB, the examinations were conducted by Panjab University and the question papers were printed in Delhi.
Tracing the links of the scam to Agra and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, Sonepat, Hisar and Bhiwani in Haryana and Najafgarh in Delhi, the VB Director, V Neeraja, has forwarded the interrogation report of the two “main conduits” — Dinesh Kumar Yadav of Agra and Pradeep Kumar Lohchab of Hisar — to Chandigarh IGP Tajender Singh Luthra, who marked the report to UT SSP Sukhchain Singh Gill.
In its two-page report, a copy of which is with The Tribune, Vigilance Bureau AIG Surjit Singh said Dinesh Yadav was arrested in connection with two FIRs registered by the VB in Mohali on May 24 and 25 this year under Sections 409, 420 and 120-B of the IPC and Section 13(1) D read with Section 13(1) (2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
During his interrogation, Yadav admitted to being an accomplice of scam mastermind Mithlesh Pandey, alias Guru ji, alias Master ji, who provided the leaked question papers of various examinations to numerous candidates at Lucknow.
On the directions of the mastermind, Yadav claimed he told Bijender Nain of Kami village in Sonepat to arrange candidates willing to pay for leaked question papers.
Nain, according to Yadav, contacted two persons by the name of Satish and Baniya, who were running a coaching centre in Sonepat. Nain and his associates arranged 24 to 25 candidates for JBT and TGT posts, the VB interrogation revealed.
Nain also arranged a bus to take all candidates from Sonepat to Lucknow, where they submitted their original education certificates. The following morning, they were taken in batches of five to six by Mithlesh to an unknown place and provided the papers to memorise.
Of the 24-25 candidates, Yadav could only reveal the names of Nain’s wife Meenakshi for JBT, Satender Hooda of Assan village in Rohtak (residing in Chandigarh) and Hooda’s wife Poonam Devi (both for TGT Maths), and Bhawna for TGT, who successfully cleared the examinations.
Yadav, the VB report said, visited Sonepat to collect the payment from Nain in February 2015, but was beaten up. He alleged that Sub-Inspector Ajay Dhankar of the Sonepat police took Rs 10 lakh to arrange a settlement.
According to Yadav, Hooda was in direct contact with Mithlesh and gave him Rs 70 lakh.
The VB also arrested conduit Pradeep Kumar Lohchab of Hisar (living in Zirakpur), who revealed that he was familiar with Lalit Kumar of Paliri village in Bhiwani (living in Mani Majra), who gave him the mobile number of another conduit, Suresh Yadav of Nihalgarh in Bhiwani.
Suresh Yadav struck a deal with Lohchab for providing the leaked paper. Lalit obtained it for the post of JBT and Lohchab took his wife Anju Devi to obtain the TGT question paper.
The VB report quoted Lohchab as saying that there were eight or nine other candidates also who were shown the TGT paper by Suresh Yadav at Najafgarh in Delhi.
UT for ‘thorough probe’
Taking cognisance, the UT Administration on Monday recommended a probe by the Chandigarh Police. “I have sent a DO letter to the Chandigarh IGP, asking him to get the matter investigated thoroughly and expeditiously,” Education Secretary Sarvjit Singh said.
The Chandigarh Police, meanwhile, have sought certain clarifications on the VB report. “There are a few things which need to be clarified before initiating legal action in the matter,” IGP Tajender Singh Luthra said.
 
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