Court directs Centre, Punjab to check misuse of education trusts
Thursday, 23/08/2012
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CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has given the central and Punjab governments three months to look into alleged improprieties by educational trust and societies. The issue has been raised in a public interest litigation, which alleges that, established for public welfare, these trust and societies, many of which run prominent institutes and even universities, adopt procedure to make profits in violation of the law.
The petition, filed by advocate Dinesh Chadha, which came up for hearing before the division bench of acting chief justice Jasbir Singh and justice Rakesh Kumar Jain, states that Chadha had also approached the University Grants Commission (UGC) on July 15 with a representation, and also sent it to the Centre and Punjab government; but till date, he has not got any reply.
Chadha has submitted that he had sought information from 30 education institutes under the RTI Act, but none of them provided the information at the first instance. Later, on the directions of the Punjab State Information Commission, only six institutes provided information. The data shows that some of the trustees had purchased a number of expensive luxury vehicles for their personal use from the trusts’ accounts. However, the petitioner has added that as the Trust Act 1882, trustees cannot use the trust property for their own convenience.
The petitioner has demanded that accounts of all such trusts be monitored and audited by a regulated authority nominated by the government.
The bench was also informed that as per law no education institution can be established for the purpose of business, and no profit can be obtained by running such institutes. But the information under RTI shows that the profit of Rayat Education and Research Trust in 2007-08 was Rs 1.83 crore, Rs 3.79 crore for 200809, Rs 3.39 crore for 2009-10 and Rs 2.08 crore for 2010-11. The Chitkara Educational Trust’s profit for 2010-11 was Rs 9.54 crore and Rs 7.14 crore for 2009-10.
