Nashik zilla parishad education officer, his deputy & office superintendent arrested in recruitment fraud cases at 2 schools in Malegaon

Nashik: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Nashik Rural Police on Tuesday night arrested the zilla parishad (ZP)'s education officer and his office superintendent in an alleged Rs2.6 crore teacher recruitment fraud at a school in Malegaon.In another case, the EOW arrested the Nashik ZP's deputy education officer on charges of clearing the appointment of an under-qualified junior clerk at another school, also in Malegaon, causing Rs45 lakh loss to the exchequer by way of the salary paid to the clerk since his illegal appointment in 2012 till April this year.Separate cases were registered with Pawarwadi and Chhavani police stations in Malegaon regarding the two matters. Superintendent of police (Nashik Rural) Balasaheb Patil handed over the matters to the EOW for further investigation considering that the overall fraud amount exceeded Rs1 crore.Inspector Raju Surve of the EOW told TOI: "We produced the three arrested ZP officials before a court on Wednesday, and the court ordered their custodial remand till Sept 13."A teacher from a high school and junior college had lodged a complaint on July 27 this year with the Pawarwadi police accusing the school administration of recruiting 13 teachers in 2024 but showing their recruitment from 2012 in records. A proposal was sent to the Nashik ZP education department for clearance of their appointments. The proposal was cleared and full salaries worth over Rs2.6 crore were sanctioned for the period between 2012 and 2021, the complainant alleged.The EOW checked the joining date of the teachers concerned as shown by the school administration. Further, they checked whether the teachers concerned were actually working in the school or not, for which the police took statements from the school's headmaster and existing teachers. This led to the arrest of five of the 13 teachers and their custodial interrogation led the EOW to unravel details about the alleged fraud.A senior EOW officer said: "The ZP education officer and the office superintendent were arrested after their complicity in the alleged fraud was established. These officers were called for enquiry on Tuesday, and as they could not give satisfactory answers to the questions, they were arrested."In the other case involving the ZP deputy education officer, the EOW found his complicity in the junior clerk's recruitment based on fake documents as he had not even cleared his class 10 examinations but was appointed junior clerk in the school.