Do your homework before you bother us: principals tell Education Dept

[karira]

As reported by Ritu Sharma on expressindia.com on 19 March 2008:
Express India :: Do your homework before you bother us: principals tell Education Dept

Do your homework before you bother us: principals tell Education Dept

Chandigarh, March 18 The Director of Public Instruction (Schools) has issued showcause notices to ten principals of government schools for “failing” to furnish details sought under the provision of the Right to Information Act (RTI) by an applicant.

But these principals say they have already forwarded the details asked for by the department within the stipulated time period. Unfortunately, nobody from the department acknowledged they had received this information. On the contrary, they have now been slapped with showcause notices, the process of replying to which is lengthy and disturbing, principals have said.
One of them grumbled, “We should now be preparing to check examination papers but are busy replying to the showcause notice. The department has done no homework, they should have verified the facts before shooting these notices.”

Meanwhile, the concerned director S K Setia refused to comment on the issue and told Newsline that he was out of station. But President of the Government Teachers’ Union, Dr Vinod Sharma, has already met Setia making his umbrage clear, telling him that the DPI(S) continues to take “one-sided” decisions against government school authorities.

The case refers to an appeal made by one V B Khanna to the first appellate authority-cum-DPI(S) for furnishing documents related to the stationary fund collected by the government’s model and non-model schools. He had moved the RTI Act.

School authorities said the documents were immediately released within the given time and forwarded to the department. They also spent school funds in the whole process, authorities said.

The figures for this expenditure was also appended to their reply to the Education department. There was no word after that.

The showcause notice issued by the DPI(S) stated that principals had failed to supply the information to V B Khanna and should immediately explain why disciplinary action should not be taken against them. It says disciplinary action will be taken if they fail to answer before March 20.