Recruitment scam: Court-monitored probe needed

Yet another alleged recruitment scam has tumbled out of the closet in Karnataka, this one going back to the Congress regime when posts of teachers were allegedly sold for Rs 15 lakh. The scandal is alleged to have occurred in 2014-15 when Siddaramaiah was Chief Minister and Kimmane Ratnakar was School Education Minister. Though the regular recruitment process was completed in 2012-13, it is alleged that some illegal appointments were made the following year through an additional list. The CID, which is investigating the case, has found that 14 teachers were thus recruited though they did not have the required qualification. Indeed, it is alleged that some of them had not even applied for the posts, let alone appeared for the qualifying exam. The CID has so far arrested 13 people, including an education department officer.

While the Congress has termed it a witch-hunt against it prompted by the approaching Assembly elections and meant to divert attention from the swarm of corruption charges against the current BJP regime, recruitment scams are nothing new in the state. In recent years, the CID had found that 15% of candidates selected for the posts of assistant commissioner and deputy superintendent of police in 2011, when B S Yediyurappa was Chief Minister, had paid bribes ranging from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1.5 crore to obtain the posts. More recently, an ADGP-level officer, Amrit Paul, was arrested in the multi-crore police sub-inspector recruitment scam, which took place under the noses of Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and Home Minister Araga Jnanendra. In August this year, it was found that question papers of examinations to fill posts of engineers in Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation (KPTCL) were leaked. The government had also recently ordered an inquiry into irregularities in recruitments to Bengaluru Milk Union Limited (Bamul). What emerges is that irrespective of which party is in power, government recruitment is riddled with corruption.

It is most unfortunate that even the Education department has not been spared from this corruption. An association of private school managements in the state had recently written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi complaining about the rampant corruption in the Education department and had sought the removal of Minister B C Nagesh. While the ongoing inquiries into various scams are welcome, unfortunately, the long arm of the law never seems to reach the kingpins and top beneficiaries of these scams. The CID, which reports to the government in power, cannot be expected to unravel the whole truth. An independent inquiry monitored by the High Court or the Lokayukta must be held into the various recruitment scams that have surfaced.