School principal's ‘misbehaviour' in Singapore: Punjab education secy, director issue ‘contradictory' orders
The Punjab School Education Department has issued two 'contradictory' orders against a Fazilka school principal 'for misbehaving with a woman tour guide during an official teacher training tour in Singapore'.
The order issued by Punjab Education Secretary Anindita Mitra says 'Gautam Khurana, the principal of Government Senior Secondary School in Fazilka, has been suspended', while the one by Director (School Education) Gurinder Singh Sodhi notes 'the complaint has been put under 'daakhil daftar' after issuing a stern warning to the principal'.
Officially, 'daakhil daftar' or filing means a complaint has been disposed of, and no further action will be taken on it. However, the matter has been stored/ archived in government records.
Mitra's order further says the alleged incident took place in the presence of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) director, who had accompanied the teachers' group during the training held in Singapore. During the suspension, the 'principal will be posted at the headquarters of the Education Department, Chandigarh', the order reads, adding Punjab Education Minister Harjot Singh Bains 'approved' it.
Notably, Mitra's order mentions two dates — May 8 and May 19.
Meanwhile, Sodhi's order — with the issuance date on May 9 — observes that 'after a reply was received from the principal and related comments were given by the SCERT director, the show cause notice to the principal was 'filed' (disposed of), with a stern warning to the principal to remain careful in future'.
When contacted, both Mitra and Sodhi confirmed issuing their respective orders, but avoided commenting on each other's letters.
About the Director's order, Mitra said: 'Not in my knowledge.'
'I issued the order to file (close) the matter after the SCERT director informed 'the principal had apologised for his behaviour'. I was not aware of the suspension order(s) issued by Secretary madam. Since she is higher in rank, her orders will be implemented,' Sodhi said.
Divya Goyal is a Principal Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Punjab.
Her interest lies in exploring both news and feature stories, with an effort to reflect human interest at the heart of each piece. She writes on gender issues, education, politics, Sikh diaspora, heritage, the Partition among other subjects. She has also extensively covered issues of minority communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She also explores the legacy of India's partition and distinct stories from both West and East Punjab.
She is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, the most revered government institute for media studies in India, from where she pursued English Journalism (Print). Her research work on 'Role of micro-blogging platform Twitter in content generation in newspapers' had won accolades at IIMC.
She had started her career in print journalism with Hindustan Times before switching to The Indian Express in 2012.
Her investigative report in 2019 on gender disparity while treating women drug addicts in Punjab won her the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2020. She won another Laadli for her ground report on the struggle of two girls who ride a boat to reach their school in the border village of Punjab.
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