New Delhi: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Sunday accused Delhi Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena of withholding approval for the appointment of 244 government school principals and taking over the services department unconstitutionally.
Had the services department been with the Delhi government, “each school would have had its own permanent principal” today, said Sisodia who is also the city’s education minister.
This comes a day after Saxena approved 126 posts of principals and deputy education officers in city government-run schools which had lapsed for “lying vacant” for more than two years.
“...in a very unfortunate manner, the L-G claimed that he has revived the lapsed post of 126 principals. The reality is that the L-G has held back the approval on the appointment of principals on 244 posts and asked the department to conduct an assessment study to check whether these principals are required in schools or not. These posts had been lying vacant for over the past five years. What kind of a joke is this?” Sisodia told a press conference.
Raj Niwas officials had said on Saturday that the 126 posts had lapsed due to the “apathy and inaction of the AAP government”.
“This is another ridiculous ‘bunch of lies’ presented by the L-G office. The L-G has made a mockery of the whole governance system in Delhi, just because he has unconstitutional power to control the services department. If the L-G had not taken over the Services Department unconstitutionally then today each school would have had its own permanent principal,” Sisodia told a press conference.
Targeting the BJP-led Centre and Saxena, he said they are “adamant” about keeping control of the services department, but determined not to appoint principals.
“The L-G even asked the services department officials to bypass the protocol of showing files to the education minister. Not only this, the L-G
even refused to answer the questions in Vidhan Sabha that provides the budget to the government,” he said.
Sisodia said they ensured that the file for the appointment of 370 principals to the L-G was sent since the administration of schools was being affected.
“Since 2015, we have been sending proposals for the appointment of principals in schools, in these years the number of schools increased and the serving principals retired. The L-G is making a mockery of Delhi’s education system by asking for a study on the need for Principals in schools,” he alleged. He said these schools are running under vice-principals. “The L-G is bullying the Delhi government by not allowing the appointment of Principals”.
“It is unfortunate that a person occupying a Constitutional post is seeking a report on whether a principal is required to run the school or not,” he said.
Sisodia asked the L-G to “stop disrupting the work of the government on the pretext that schools should have a Principal or not”.
“This is not a joke but a serious issue related to running schools,” he said. Sisodia said that when they came to power in 2015, the services department was under Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
“The decisions on the appointment of principals were taken by the CM, Deputy CM and the Education Minister then. During that time we got many appointments done which were pending for a long time. Vacancies for principals released by the UPSC were lying vacant since 2010. We sent the proposal for the appointment of Principals on 370 posts after that. As soon as the proposal was sent, the L-G office took over the services department unconstitutionally,” he said.
Sisodia said the UPSC asked a few questions regarding the 370 posts.
“The L-G had taken over the services department by then, but his office never provided satisfactory answers to the UPSC. It has been eight years since the L-G is dealing with the issue of the appointment of principals but nothing has happened so far,” he said.
The minister claimed that two years ago, he intervened informally and got the officials connected to the UPSC and the process started again.