As investigation into the infamous textbook scam could see many heads roll, the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB) authorities are in a fix over the name of Pavitar Pal Kaur, a former Secretary in the board and the wife of a sitting Akali MLA, figuring in the FIR registered by the police.
Pavitar Pal Kaur, at present Deputy Director (Field Programme), was Secretary of the board when the Rs 65-lakh textbook scam was detected in 2009.
The then Vice-Chairman of the board in his report sent to the police had mentioned that officials of the board had released payment of lakhs to two publishers, Bharat Offset Printers, Noida, and SB Printers, Noida, without getting the required number of textbooks of different classes. PSEB Chairman Dr Dalbir Singh Dhillon was not available for comments.
The payment was released on the basis of tampered documents submitted by the printers in connivance with certain board officials.
The case pertains to printing order of textbooks pertaining to academic year 2008-09, wherein two Noida-based printing firms were given the order to publish the same.
One of the firms supplied 40,000 less textbooks of maths (Punjabi medium) for Class VI. In one of the cases, the board has already released payments for the books that were never supplied, resulting in loss of lakhs of rupees.
