Ravi S Singh
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, October 20
Cheesed off by alleged “stone-walling” by the Punjab Government to probe by the National Commission of Scheduled Castes (NCSC) into the alleged scam in implementation of post-matric scholarship scheme for Scheduled Castes students, the latter has now recommended to Comptroller and Auditors General (CAG) to look into the matter.
Also, the Commission will get the matter investigated by a retired Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
“The NCSC has recommended to the CAG to look into the financial aspect of the welfare scheme implementation of the scheme,” NCSC Vijay Sampla informed on Thursday.
He said the Punjab government, including its highest echelon, has been evading, avoiding, and at times road-blocking the probe by the Commission.
“In an apparent cue from the highest level, the officials concerned have also adopted an attitude of non-cooperation towards the Commission’s probe,” Sampla said, and added that due to the involvement of financial dimension in the alleged scandal, the matter has been eventually referred to the CAG.
Sampla said that it is ironic and unfortunate that while on the one hand the Punjab government has been wading into litany of complaints against the Centre for not releasing funds for the scheme. On the other hand it returned the funds on non-implementation of the scheme.
The Commission is of the view that even if a smidgen of the scheme was implemented, there were rabbit holes of alleged financial and other corruption, to which the state government is unwilling to clear the air, even in the face of complaints from public and probe into them by a Constitutional body, Sampla said.
He underlined that the Commission will act as per its remit to ensure the welfare of the SCs, no matter how much gobbledegook state governments paper over the misdeeds with regard to welfare schemes.
He further said that the alleged corruption in Punjab in the scheme’s implementation has several dimensions. Hence, the matter will be probed by a retired judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court to get to the bottom of its entire gamut.
The terms of reference of the proposed judicial probe will be decided in due course.
The Commission has sought a panel of names of judges from the High Court. One name will be selected from the panel to head the probe.
Sources said the High Court has assured the Commission. A panel of five names is likely to be sent by the court.
An alleged scam involving financial corruption regarding the scheme surfaced in 2019 during Captain Amarinder Singh government, and the same had become a campaign issue in the last Assembly election in the State.
The complaint, among others, was that about Rs 17 crores were disbursed to errant and fake institutions.
The Commission has also received a number of complaints in the matter.
