Chandigarh: Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit and Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann are at loggerheads again.
A day after Purohit shot off a strongly-worded letter to the CM complaining that his communications to the Aam Aadmi Party government in the state, seeking information on several issues, has gone unanswered, Mann wrote back saying he was “not accountable” to an appointee of the central government, but only to the people of Punjab who elected him.
Purohit has said Article 167 of the Constitution authorised him as Governor to seek information as a matter of right, to which the state government was bound to reply. He also warned the CM of seeking legal advice if the latter did not respond to his queries.
In his letter, Purohit had questioned the basis of selection of a batch of 36 school principals sent to Singapore for training by the state government.
On 4 February, Mann had flagged off the principals’ trip from Chandigarh, as they left to participate in a four-day professional teacher training seminar, between 6 February and 10 February.
In a sharp retort, the Chief Minister’s Office in a press statement issued Tuesday said: “You have asked me to give details of the criteria followed by my government in selecting the principals who were sent to Singapore. Please tell the people of Punjab on what basis and by what criteria are governors appointed?”
Here’s a lowdown on the five major issues that the Governor has highlighted in his latest letter to the CM Monday.
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5 major issues
In his letter to the CM Monday, the Governor sought information regarding the manner in which 36 principals of government schools were chosen to be sent to an all-paid-for “knowledge sharing” trip to Singapore this month. The Governor said that he had come to know from news reports that the manner in which the principals were chosen and sent was fraught with “malpractices” and “illegalities”.
“I therefore request you to send me criteria and details of the entire selection process. Please give detail if it was widely published throughout Punjab,” wrote the governor, seeking “details of total expenditure incurred on travelling, boarding and lodging and expenses towards training” of the principals.
When the principals returned on 11 February, a special function had been organised in Delhi to welcome them back. The event was attended by Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal and Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.
Secondly, the Governor questioned the appointment of Guninderjit Singh Jawanda as chairman of the Punjab Information and Communication Technology Corporation, on the ground that his name appears in a case of alleged kidnapping and land grabbing. The state government named Jawanda the corporation chairman on 4 February.
Jawanda is the chairman of the Bhai Gurdas group of colleges in Sangrur, the hometown of the CM. Jawanda has also served as the state joint secretary of the trade wing of the Aam Aadmi Party.
In September 2021, a petitioner identified as Nimrat Kaur Manshahia had moved the Punjab and Haryana high court against Jawanda and 21 others, alleging that her husband Preetinder Singh Manshahia was abducted by them to grab his property, with the help of the police.
ThePrint repeatedly reached Jawanda on call for his reaction to the Governor’s letter and the allegations against him, but received no response. His office staff at the corporation said he is yet to take charge of his new position.
Thirdly, in July last year Purohit had sought a comprehensive report from the Punjab government over allegations that between 2007 and 2010, over 2 lakh students of the Scheduled Caste community dropped out of colleges for want of the SC post-matric scholarship worth Rs 2,000 crore provided by the state government. The matter was highlighted by the chairperson of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) Vijay Sampla.
Later, Mann too had ordered a probe into alleged irregularities in the post-matric scholarship scheme that had surfaced during the Congress regime in the state.
However, the Governor, in his letter said that no report had been shared by the Mann government over this issue.
Another point of contention between the CM and the Governor is the appointment of biotechnologist S. S. Gosal as the vice-chancellor of Punjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana in August 2022. The Governor has alleged that the appointment wasn’t made in accordance with University Grants Commission (UGC) norms.
The Mann government shot off a letter to the Governor saying that Gosal’s appointment wasn’t “illegal” and asked Purohit not to engage in a “proxy war” with the state government. However, in November, the Governor insisted on Gosal’s removal. The Mann government ignored the “order” and Gosal continues to be the PAU V-C.
Lastly, in his letter to the CM, the Governor also pointed out that he had raised the issue of the Punjab government allowing outsiders to sit in its official meetings. The Governor cited a letter written to him by Leader of Opposition Pratap Singh Bajwa in December last year, that one Naval Aggarwal was attending official meetings of the Punjab government including those being chaired by the chief secretary. Bajwa had claimed that the CM had “breached oath of secrecy”.
Apart from Bajwa, the issue was highlighted by other opposition leaders as well. Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal had tweeted a picture of Naval Aggarwal attending a high-powered meeting of the Punjab police with the chief secretary.
Aggarwal heads the Punjab Good Governance Fellowship programme — a collaboration between the Government of Punjab and the Indian School of Business (ISB). Instead of taking any action on Purohit’s letter, the Punjab government is reportedly all set to appoint Aggarwal as an officer on special duty (OSD) to the minister for governance reforms.
(Edited by Anumeha Saxena)
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