Madrasa Appointment Scandal: Case Registered Against Three Including Principal, Investigation Against Senior Officials Also Initiated

Madrasa officials' complaint, conspiracy, and silence.
Balrampur, December 18. A madrasa recruitment scandal has surfaced in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, raising serious questions about the accountability and oversight mechanism of the Minority Welfare Department. The case pertains to the Jamia Anwar Ul Uloom madrasa in Tulsipur, where recruitments were made disregarding norms during the lockdown-like emergency. A major game of madrasa and madrasa board officials has come to the fore in the matter of appointment to the post of Assistant Teacher in the deceased quota.

Mohammad Hasan Raza, a resident of Tulsipur, was to be appointed to the post of Assistant Teacher under the deceased quota, but he was declared ineligible in a fake manner and appointed to the post of Junior Clerk. During the Corona period, someone else was appointed by showing fake meetings regarding the Assistant Teacher. On receiving a complaint in this matter, the Deputy Secretary of the Uttar Pradesh government, while taking notice, directed the registration of a case against three people, and a case has been registered against all three.

An inquiry has been started at the government level against the then Registrar of the Madrasa Board and the Minority Officer regarding the entire matter. Social worker and complainant Mohammad Imran said that he has been continuously complaining to the Minority Officer and senior officials of the Madrasa Board since 2020 about the fake appointment under the quota. He further said that during the Covid-19 lockdown, someone else was appointed to the teaching post by deception, and Hasan Raza was forcibly shown as a clerk.

Immediately after, he found out that the local madrasa administration had forged his signature and sent a notarized affidavit to the board, stating that he was ineligible for the teaching post. The complainant said that he had complained about the deception at the time of his appointment, but the then District Minority Officer and the Madrasa Board had ignored his complaints. Almost five years later, when the government took notice of the matter, the signatures on the affidavits were examined from the Forensic Science Laboratory.

The report clearly revealed that the disputed signatures were not of Hasan Raza and the fake affidavit was written by the madrasa clerk Aziz Ahmed Ansari. After this result, an FIR was registered against the madrasa principal Maeraj Ahmed, clerk Aziz Ahmed Ansari, and others at the Tulsipur police station. However, no arrest has been made yet. After the court's permission, Tulsipur resident Mohammad Imran complained to the government about the entire incident and sought permission from the court.

After this, an investigation was conducted at the level of the Deputy Secretary of the Uttar Pradesh government, in which the deception was revealed, and an FIR was registered. After the FIR, questions were raised about the role of the then District Minority Welfare Officer and the then Registrar of the Madrasa Board. When fake documents reached the board and complaints were pending for years, was it possible without official patronage? Can the system of accountability be avoided by taking action at the madrasa level - or will the investigation reach a higher level?

Regarding this case, Director of Minority Welfare, Incret Agarwal, said that a government-level legal investigation is underway regarding the role of the then Registrar of the Madrasa Board and the District Minority Welfare Officer.