CBI books NDA principal, senior professors in graft case
Neeraj.Chauhan@timesgroup.com
New Delhi: 07.06.2018
The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a corruption case against the principal of National Defence Academy (Khadakwasla, Pune), Om Prakash Shukla, and other senior professors and heads of departments for alleged irregularities in the appointment of 13 ineligible teaching faculty members, including Shukla himself.
Those named as accused in the CBI FIR along with Shukla include Jagmohan Meher (professor of political science), Rajeev Bansal (associate professor of mathematics), Vanita Puri (associate professor of chemistry), Maheshwar Roy (head of department of chemistry) and other unknown faculty members of NDA.
The CBI has also named unknown officials of UPSC and Integrated Defence Staff (IDS), which comes under ministry of defence, in the FIR. The agency had registered a preliminary inquiry in the matter in May 2017, which has been turned into a regular case (FIR) earlier this month after which CBI teams on Wednesday conducted raids at several places in Pune and NDA premises.
Interestingly, the central information commissioner had last week itself passed strictures against O P Shukla, who was ineligible for the post of NDA principal, for harassing a female lecturer applicant at NDA Pune when she sought a reply under Right to Information Act.
Tarannum Bano had applied for the post of assistant professor in 2012 but she was denied age relaxation while another woman was provided relaxation. She filed an RTI with the headquarters of Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) in New Delhi but the information officer of IDS, instead of providing information, misrepresented facts about her RTI application. It was alleged that O P Shukla pressured her to withdraw her RTI application.
On May 25, the CIC, while adjudicating in favour of Bano, said, “….Commission severely admonishes O P Shukla, principal, NDA, as the instant case has brought out significant aspects of his high- handedness in official dealings. It is also a glaring instance of apparent misuse of position and power, so much so that O P Shukla interfered with a citizen’s right to information merely by virtue of the said citizen being subordinate to him under extant service rules at the relevant time.”
“The said interference is akin to interfering with a citizen’s Constitutional right to freedom,” CIC said in its order.
Shukla and the other accused, CBI says, selected and appointed teaching faculty in different posts of NDA without possessing mandatory teaching or research experience as prescribed by UPSC and as required by MoD. The selection was done on the basis of forged and false certificates indicating their service and teaching experience and also exaggerated academic performance indicator (API) score.
The faculty members of NDA, civilian posts, are appointed by MoD on the recommendations of UPSC, which functions as the selection authority. The Union Public Service Commission conducts preliminary scrutiny of the applications received and shortlists the candidates on the basis of their experiences and API scores.
After interviews, their degrees, diplomas, experience certificates are verified by IDS headquarters.
Neeraj.Chauhan@timesgroup.com
New Delhi: 07.06.2018
The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a corruption case against the principal of National Defence Academy (Khadakwasla, Pune), Om Prakash Shukla, and other senior professors and heads of departments for alleged irregularities in the appointment of 13 ineligible teaching faculty members, including Shukla himself.
Those named as accused in the CBI FIR along with Shukla include Jagmohan Meher (professor of political science), Rajeev Bansal (associate professor of mathematics), Vanita Puri (associate professor of chemistry), Maheshwar Roy (head of department of chemistry) and other unknown faculty members of NDA.
The CBI has also named unknown officials of UPSC and Integrated Defence Staff (IDS), which comes under ministry of defence, in the FIR. The agency had registered a preliminary inquiry in the matter in May 2017, which has been turned into a regular case (FIR) earlier this month after which CBI teams on Wednesday conducted raids at several places in Pune and NDA premises.
Interestingly, the central information commissioner had last week itself passed strictures against O P Shukla, who was ineligible for the post of NDA principal, for harassing a female lecturer applicant at NDA Pune when she sought a reply under Right to Information Act.
Tarannum Bano had applied for the post of assistant professor in 2012 but she was denied age relaxation while another woman was provided relaxation. She filed an RTI with the headquarters of Integrated Defence Staff (IDS) in New Delhi but the information officer of IDS, instead of providing information, misrepresented facts about her RTI application. It was alleged that O P Shukla pressured her to withdraw her RTI application.
On May 25, the CIC, while adjudicating in favour of Bano, said, “….Commission severely admonishes O P Shukla, principal, NDA, as the instant case has brought out significant aspects of his high- handedness in official dealings. It is also a glaring instance of apparent misuse of position and power, so much so that O P Shukla interfered with a citizen’s right to information merely by virtue of the said citizen being subordinate to him under extant service rules at the relevant time.”
“The said interference is akin to interfering with a citizen’s Constitutional right to freedom,” CIC said in its order.
Shukla and the other accused, CBI says, selected and appointed teaching faculty in different posts of NDA without possessing mandatory teaching or research experience as prescribed by UPSC and as required by MoD. The selection was done on the basis of forged and false certificates indicating their service and teaching experience and also exaggerated academic performance indicator (API) score.
The faculty members of NDA, civilian posts, are appointed by MoD on the recommendations of UPSC, which functions as the selection authority. The Union Public Service Commission conducts preliminary scrutiny of the applications received and shortlists the candidates on the basis of their experiences and API scores.
After interviews, their degrees, diplomas, experience certificates are verified by IDS headquarters.
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