Former NCERT chief Sinclair to face probe

Former NCERT director Parvin Sinclair’s decision to review the national curriculum for school education at the fag end of the UPA regime has landed her in fresh trouble.  

The HRD Ministry has initiated a probe into her decision to start the curriculum review along with a host of charges of “academic corruption” during her term at the council.

Recently, the ministry asked the NCERT to provide all documents relating to Sinclair’s decision to start review of the curriculum, including those “indicating corruption in the review”, sources told Deccan Herald.  

In a letter to the council on May 26, the ministry has also called for documents indicating procedures that had to be followed for starting such a review, sources added. This comes months after Sinclair quit the NCERT, resigning half-way into her tenure on September 29 last year.

Dinanath Batra, national president of the Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas, an outfit linked to the RSS, had objected to the review, accusing the council of starting it “in a hurry” soon after the BJP-led coalition came to power.

The HRD Ministry is also looking into complaints that Sinclair “compelled” faculty to go to villages and teach in primary schools for three months.

She has been accused of reducing academic programmes from 750 to 129 by flouting the procedures.

Sinclair has further been charged with appointing non-eligible persons on “fictitious and false certificates” as well as amending the recruitment rules for academic posts without any approval of the executive committee.

The ministry has asked the NCERT to provide documents relating to such appointments and amendments made in recruitment rules for academic posts. Besides, the ministry is carrying out a fresh probe into an accusation against Sinclair that she “circumvented” procedures to purchase Maplitho paper for printing text books immediately after taking over in 2012-13. 

The former NCERT chief has also been accused of “transferring crores of rupees in haste” for purchase of ACs, violating the norms.  The ministry will also look into a complaint that Sinclair “wasted” Rs 34 lakh for renovating the director’s bungalow, but never moved in.  She has also been accused of non-payment of “house rent/demurrage charges and licence fee to IGNOU for retaining a flat in ASIAD village in Delhi for two years.”