The chargesheet which was handed over to Secondary education Director CS Gwal just four days before his superannuation is the subject matter of animated discussions among the officials of education directorate here.
The chargesheet was handed over to Gwal on Wednesday by a special envoy send by the State Government in the scam estimated worth Rs50 lakh in the State Educational Research and Training (SCERT).The charge sheet contains eight points and Gwal has been given a time period of 15 days to file his reply to the Government. The outgoing director would be bereft of his retirement benefits till he proves his innocence in the matter.
This matter is of intense speculations and discussions in the education directorate these days as groups of employees could be seen putting their opinion on the issue. Some of them are of the view that Gwal is being unnecessarily framed in the matter while others opined that the wily officer with his considerable clout in the political circles would wiggle himself out of the current mess.
Gwal is considered very close to some of the top leaders of Congress party and speculations were rife that his political mentors would appoint him in some Government body after his retirement.
It is worth mentioning here that the departmental audit committee had found gross financial irregularities in the departmental tenders of SCERT (Narendranagar- Tehri) during the period of 2005-2007 when Gwal was holding the post of additional director.
On the adverse audit report an inquiry headed by the then Director General (DG) of school education R K Sudhanshu indicted Gwal of financial irregularities worth Rs54.11 lakhs after investigation.The inquiry commission held a detailed investigation on the issue and listed 22 points of objections in the report. Gwal at that time had tendered his explanations but the commission was not convinced on most of the listed points.The matter thereafter was put on back burner as Gwal used his political influence to obstruct action against him.
In the meantime Gwal managed to reach the highest position of education cadre in the state despite being indicted in the report of Sudhansu but the issue resurfaced just before he was due for retirement and the Education Minister Mantri Prasad Naithani personally ensured that he gets the charge sheet in the scam.