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CHANDIGARH: The Punjab government has started the process to charge sheet IAS officer Puneet Goyal for his alleged corrupt practices in the state technical education and industrial training board’s revaluation scam during the previous SAD-BJP regime.

There are allegations that during Goyal’s tenure as secretary of the board, numerous students of the polytechnics and ITIs were passed in revaluation of papers on monetary considerations. Goyal is presently posted as additional secretary in the employment generation and training department. Goyal had joined the state government as Punjab Civil Services (PCS) officer and the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) had promoted him to the IAS cadre in July last year.

Sources confirmed the technical education department has sent the draft chargesheet to the personnel department for starting disciplinary proceedings against the officer. When contacted, Goyal told TOI, “I don’t want to comment. Once the personnel department asks me, I will submit my explanation.”

It was in December last year that the technical education and industrial training minister Charanjit Singh Channi had recommended chargesheet against Goyal for his alleged role in the scam. Channi, after having taken over department’s charge, had said he had come to know that even those students who had scored a zero were passed during revaluation. The minister had suspended board’s registrar Navneet Walia and had removed Goyal as the board’s secretary in May 2017.

Thereafter, additional chief secretary in the technical education and industrial training department, G Vajralingam, had written to the chief secretary for serving Goyal with the chargesheet. However, the personnel department had asked the technical education department to elaborate about the charges against Goyal following which the draft chargesheet has now been sent to the personnel department.

During the preliminary inquiry, it had come to fore that during Goyal’s tenure as board’s secretary, board’s functionaries had even allotted examination centres to such colleges that did not fulfill the minimum required criteria for running an examination centre.

Goyal hit headlines during his tenure as Pathankot SDM in February 2004. Two honorary wildlife wardens had allegedly caught him with two peahens and four partridges in the Narur area forest in Hoshiarpur. Prosecution had claimed that the wildlife department had recovered a licensed .12 bore gun and live cartridges from the jeep used by Goyal. Later, in 2016, the Hoshiarpur court had acquitted Goyal of poaching charges.

