PSEB secretary made chief engineer in 2011 without CM nod: RTI

Times of India: Chandigarh: Wednesday, 17 September 2014.

Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) secretary Gurinderpal Singh Bath, whose masters degree in civil engineering was found invalid, was first made superintending engineer (SE) and then chief engineer (building and maintenance, PSEB) in 2011 without the mandatory approval of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal.

On both occasions, there was no necessary approval by the chief minister to create these posts, which did not even exist in school education board in 2011. This has been revealed from the official documents procured under the Right to Information (RTI) Act from PSEB.

There are allegations against Bath that he was favoured due to his proximity to senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leaders, including the two past education ministers. Both Bath and the ministers have categorically denied this.

According to RTI documents, Bath was first given the pay scale of SE on July 5, 2011 and then made chief engineer within a week on July 12. He was made SE through an order sanctioned by then education minister Sewa Singh Sekhon.

According to reorganisation restructuring committee rules, CM is the only competent authority to create such tops posts in the state corporations and boards.

The RTI documents further reveal that Bath was in fact designated as SE on February 13, 2008, whereas his probation as executive engineer was confirmed and cleared only a year later on April 20, 2009.

It also reveals that he bypassed several posts during his promotion to SE in 2011.

Bath, however, said the Akali Dal government must answer why he was given these top posts all along.

"The government and ministers must reply why they approved my posts. I myself did nothing wrong," he said.

Bath's appointment as secretary, the third highest post in the state education board, has already been challenged in the Punjab and Haryana high court through three writ petitions.

A nine-month inquiry had recently found that Bath's MTech degree in civil engineering was obtained in 2013 through a distance learning programme from Karnataka State Open University in Mysore and it is not recognized by the All India Council for Technical Education.