Pinpointing huge lapses in the investigation conducted by the Crime Branch of Jammu and Kashmir Police in the infamous Elementary Teacher Training (ETT) institutes scams, Anti-Corruption Court directed a further probe into this high-profile case involving successive education ministers and higher-ups of the education department.
The Court also directed the Crime Branch to investigate the roles of successive Education Ministers of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir after the year 2000, including Secretaries of Education and Chairpersons of the Board of School Education, J&K.
The Special Judge Anticorruption Court Jammu, Tahir Khurshid Raina, while directing further investigation in the case, has passed strictures against the Investigation Officer of the case and the then Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) crime who was acting as SHO police station crime branch Jammu under whose supervision this "sham and shoddy" investigation was conducted.
Pinpointing several lapses in the investigation, the Special Judge Anti-Corruption observed, "it appears that there was complete mess prevailing in the ETT sector, the successive Governments, just for the sake of formalities and paper exercise, were issuing simply the guidelines, circulars, etc without seeking their implementation."
Court directs Special DG Crime Branch to constitute SIT
The Court directed the Special Director General Crime, Union Territory of J&K to constitute an SIT to be headed by an IPS Officer, not below the rank of SSP for conducting further investigation in the matter.
"The further investigation to be completed within a period of two months from the date of receipt of this order by the Special DG, Crime, and the SIT in-charge is further directed to submit the status report of the investigation fortnightly before this court", read the order passed by the Special Judge Anti-Corruption Jammu.
The compliance report with regard to the constitution of the SIT shall be submitted by the Special DG, Crime, J&K within 10 days from the date of receipt of this order, the court concluded.
"Non-existing institutes" provide ETT training to teachers
As per the initial inquiry conducted by some agencies, many non-existing institutes provided ETT training to teachers. These institutions were at all not existing on the ground and they simply acted as money-minting machines with no checks and balances in place by the Board or Government agencies on the working of these institutes.
It is alleged that the candidates were lured and amounts ranging from Rs 45,000 to Rs 80,000 were extracted from each one of them through touts for providing them degrees and certificates by these ETT colleges.
"It was important for the investigator to know who granted NOCs to all these institutes and on what basis when they were found existing nowhere as per the inquiry reports. These were the important facts to have been investigated in terms of the reports. But the chargesheet is silent on all these crucial aspects of the case", Court observed.
Interestingly, these institutions managed such fraud when the Board authorities were duty-bound to ensure the proper functioning of the institutes as per the guidelines prescribed. "Of course, such a rank scam would not have sustained without the active support and patronage of the then authorities sitting in the Board and the Administrative Department of the education, which was the overall supervising authority of the education sector of the State", the court further said.
Ex-chairman of the Education Board was arrested in ETT scam in 2015
In 2015 the Crime Branch Kashmir had arrested former chairman BOSE Chairman, Sheikh Bashir Ahmad for his alleged involvement in the scam.
Dar was said to be a "mastermind" in the allotment of the ETT colleges in 2003 without adhering to any rules, regulations, and norms. He was arrested when he was trying to flee to Srinagar from Jammu.
Interestingly, ETT colleges had been allotted merely on applications without verifying requisite infrastructure.
