The National Commission for Scheduled Castes on Friday hit out at the Aam Aadmi Party-led Punjab government for issuing a “factually incorrect” press release stating that the SC Commission had returned the arrest warrant for Principal Secretary, School Education, Jaspreet Talwar. had taken
The SC panel, exercising its powers in a civil court, had last week issued an arrest and production warrant against the IAS officer and demanded that he be produced before NCSC chairman Vijay Sampla by January 17. The NCSC had said that Ms Talwar did not appear before the commission despite being issued summons for appointments of junior and general category principals in 2010 when she was the Education Officer/Principal.
On Thursday, the Punjab government’s Information and Public Relations Department issued a statement saying the SC panel had “withdrawn” the arrest warrant and issued a fresh order demanding its production.
However, on Friday, Kaushal Kumar, director (headquarters), NCSC, issued a statement saying that the Punjab government’s press release “concealed that Jaspreet Talwar had requested the commission to withdraw the arrest warrant and that request Chief Secretary, the next day”.
He said that the release wrongly stated that the NCSC had issued fresh orders asking Jaspreet Talwar to appear before the commission.
He concluded that in view of the above facts, it was clear that the I&PR Department Punjab had issued a factually incorrect press release.