Srinagar: The Principal Amar Singh College Srinagar on Thursday rebutted the news carried by this newspaper in its November 22 issue.
The story was about assigning multiple tasks to a single professor of the College.
In the story, the correspondent has quoted the College Principal, the concerned professor and some official documents to balance the content and have versions from all the concerned.
However, the principal AS College in its clarification has stated that the College “vehemently refutes all the allegations made in the news report” noting that utmost integrity, merit and dedication are the criteria for assigning any responsibility to a teacher.
“Moreover, these additional responsibilities do not make the person entitled to financial or any other benefit,” the College Principal B A Rather said.
He said that Amar Singh College was the premier institution with a glorious history, and people at the helm of affairs at the institution are fully aware and committed for its betterment.
“Singling out any teacher and leveling baseless allegations is disdainful. During the challenging times of Covid-19, the teachers of this institution toiled hard to conduct the classes efficiently and carried out enumerable activities. Any demeaning news reporting amounts to discouraging the committed teachers of the institution,” he said.
Meanwhile, it is clarified that the story published on November 22 did not level allegations of corruption or misconduct by the principal or the concerned professor of the college.
The story also did not mention anything about the functioning of the college during Covid-19 times, which has been referred to by the College Principal.
The Principal AS College in his rebuttal has not rebutted any specific content of the story. The story mentioned about the illegal drawl of the Professor and quoted the report submitted by the college Principal which has exonerated the concerned professor.
“The accommodation meant for the caretaker lies in the hostel block itself without any extra standard facilities entitled to the officer. As per the government Order No Edu-Coll/PF/604/Elect dated July 31, 2009, the hostel caretaker is entitled for HRA,” the newspaper reported while referring to the college report submitted on March 14 and 24 to Director Colleges and Director Finance of HED.
However, this newspaper has assessed an official communiqué issued by the HED on April 26 noting that the report regarding the recovery of the HRA from the professor and abuse of government accommodation was pending.
“I am directed to refer to this department’s letter number dated March 29 of 2022 regarding the recovery of HRA from the professor and abuse of government accommodation at A S College. The requisite report and information are still awaited which may kindly be expedited,” the official communiqué reads.
Notably, a circular issued by the then Financial Commissioner Finance Department in February 2021 on payment of HRA and recovery of rent reads that no HRA is admissible to any such government employee who is allotted government accommodation or is in occupation of any government accommodation under any pretext, unless of course, expressly provided by any order or rule.
“So far as move employees are concerned their HRA is governed by Government Order No. 1376-GAD of 1998 dated 23.10.1998,” it reads.
In the circular, the government clarified that in case any amount of HRA has been paid to such Government employee who is residing in any government accommodation such amount shall be recovered from the concerned employee forthwith.
“It has also been clarified that all Government employees who have been provided government accommodation by Estates, or other departments like R&B, Tourism Department, Forest have to pay rent of that accommodation,” it reads.
In the circular all the Administrative Secretaries have been asked to direct the Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDOs) under their control to ensure the recovery of HRA which has been wrongly paid to Government employees while in possession of government accommodation in violation of rules.