HRD will probe charges against NCERT’s Rajput

The HRD ministry has ordered a preliminary departmental inquiry into allegations of malpractices and nepotism against director of the Nation...

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The HRD ministry has ordered a preliminary departmental inquiry into allegations of malpractices and nepotism against director of the National Council of Educational Research and Training, J.S.Rajput. The inquiry was ordered after complaints against the director, due to go out of office in the second week of July, were forwarded by the government’s department of personnel.

If the preliminary probe finds a prima facie case against Rajput, the investigation will become more detailed and elaborate. Though an official announcement on the inquiry is yet to be made, sources said that some of these allegations date back to 2001 and concerned ‘‘benefits granted to his relatives’’ and other irregularities.

Rajput was not available for comment. His family members said he was out of station and would be back in Delhi on Sunday.

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• The first of the allegations is regarding his wife, Sarla Rajput, becoming a professor of political science in NCERT. NCERT insiders have apparently sent a note to the new government in which they have said Sarla Rajput had been a Reader in political science in Bhopal several years ago and subsequently had nothing to do with the subject after her husband was transferred to the Capital.

In Delhi, she was in the NCERT’s Department of Educational Measurement and Evaulation. For several years she had nothing to do with the subject when her name was suddenly proposed for professorship in political science.

• Another allegation is that Rajput’s brother-in-law, one Dr Chauhan, who was a trained government teacher in NCERT’s school in Bhopal, but was ‘‘made a lecturer in the National Institute of Education in early 2000.’’

• It is also alleged that Rajput ensured the appointment of one Kiran Walia as a Reader in NCERT even after the first screening committee had not cleared her name as one of the eligible candidates.

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Other irregularities alleged include re-employment under ‘‘very inexplicable circumstances’’ to a handful NCERT academics and personnel, deemed close to the director.