Sisodia has reportedly suspended the school principal and ordered a probe. (Source: Express Archive) Sisodia has reportedly suspended the school principal and ordered a probe. (Source: Express Archive)

In a surprise inspection recorded on a television camera and tweeted promptly, Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia and his team of officials suspended the principal of the Rajinder Prasad Secondary Sarvodaya School at President’s Estate.

Fake recipts for purchase of thousands every month, nothing was purchased. Principle under scanner for scam. pic.twitter.com/Alt3cbya8C — Ashutosh Mishra (@ashu3page) April 15, 2015

In a surprise inspection recorded on a television camera and tweeted promptly, Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia and his team of officials suspended the principal of the Rajinder Prasad Secondary Sarvodaya School at President’s Estate.

Sisodia came down heavily on the principal Vishan Lal after finding that the school allegedly maintained fake bills for training students in food processing when there was no food-processing laboratory in the school.

Following his visit, Sisodia ordered the suspension of Lal and termination of the services of a guest teacher who taught food processing.

Government officials said the visit was conducted after the government received a complaint against the school. Sisodia referred the case to the anti-corruption branch for filing an FIR.

A TV news camera followed Sisodia to the school. He is seen examining the school’s record book and reprimanding the principal for irregularities.

“Do you know that you have been eating out of children’s share? You are making a mockery of education,” Sisodia is heard saying in the TV footage.

Sisodia was accompanied by senior officials including secretary to the deputy chief minister. Government officials said that it was found that no laboratory existed in the school for providing this training and the students told the minister that they had virtually never been given any information about the subject.

Scrutiny of the bills, however, showed that in the name of practicals, fake bills showing purchases of chicken, mutton, olive oil, potatoes and rice were regularly raised.

When questioned, the principal is seen telling Sisodia, “Bachche kisi ke sage nahi hain (Children are loyal to no one).”

Sisodia then lost his cool and chided the principal, “Aapko sharam aani chahiye. Aap principal hain (You should be ashamed of yourself. Are you really the principal)?”

The principal also told Sisodia that he had made the school “number one” but Sisodia retorted saying that the school was “number one in corruption”.

Between 11.44 am and 12.50 pm, seven tweets about the surprise inspection were posted from Sisodia’s twitter handle @msisodia. The tweets contained photographs and the minister’s observations of the school visit.

A government official said that bills produced by the school showed several discrepancies. “The bills were found to have been raised from shops in places like Seemapuri, Trilokpuri, Jahangirpuri for the school situated in central Delhi. There is no mention of the goods purchased in the stock register of the school and no TIN (Taxpayer Identification Numbers) were mentioned.

During the inspection it was found that fake bills appeared to have been prepared in a hurry, in which the amount of purchases done against the quantity mentioned did not tally in many bills,” a government official said.

The minister and government officials also found that account books of the school showed salary payments to five safai karmacharis, but only one karmachari was on duty. The safai karamchari on duty told the minister that he was paid only half the amount of what he was asked to sign on papers, government officials claimed.

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