PATNA: The Bihar government has ordered the salary release of 42,000 newly appointed teachers working without pay since March due to a delay in verifying their documents, a statement released by the education department said.

The government had set September 9, 2022 as a deadline for document verification, but that seems far from over.

However, the newly appointed teachers working since the start of the academic session had demanded a salary instead of their work and some of them also met with Education Minister Vijay Kumar Choudhary who called a high-level meeting to consider the matter.

“It emerged from the review that having teachers work without pay would not appear legitimate, especially when applicants submitted an affidavit in the prescribed format, clearly stating that all documents are in good faith and that it is not there is no conviction in any criminal case, failing which the appointment will automatically be revoked,” said Director of Primary Education, Ravi Prakash.

Later, Additional Chief Secretary (Education) Dipak Kumar Singh also clarified that the 42,000 teachers would be receiving all their overdue salaries and would continue to receive monthly salaries until March 2023 when all checks should be completed. . “There will be a review of the status of document verification in March to make further decisions. Teachers are also urged to proactively have their documents verified. The order to release their monthly salary has been issued” , he added.

In view of the start of the new post-Covid academic session from April 1, the government had decided not to wait for the verification of all documents, as decided earlier to avoid the past controversy over the submission of false certificates, and appointed them with an endorsement that those who had their documents checked would receive salary with immediate effect, while others would have to wait for their salary until the verification exercise was completed.

The department exercised caution as 562 candidates were found to have submitted fake CTET/BETET certificates during the counseling and legal action was taken against them.

Recruitment of teachers between 2006 and 2015 through panchayati raj institutions and local urban bodies had landed in the high court in Patna following allegations of the use of false documents by a large number of applicants and the investigation has been going on for nearly seven years now. A few thousand teachers had also resigned under the HC amnesty program, but the investigation by State Vigilance continues.

The HC, which ordered the vigilance investigation into the appointment of teachers in 2015, had in the past expressed dissatisfaction with the slowness of the investigation due to more than 90,000 missing records, following which the department asked teachers to upload scanned copies of their certificates to the specified site. portal, but this process has also been slow. The ministry has now made it clear that those who don’t upload it will be considered illegal appointees and will be removed.