The under-construction Musa Shah Middle School building. Picture by Mukesh Kumar Jha

A headmaster of a government school in the town has been accused of misappropriating funds allotted for construction of a building on the campus of the institute.

Block education officer Pratap Narayan Singh on Tuesday instituted a case of misappropriation of government funds against Awadh Bihari Thakur, the headmaster of Musa Shah Middle School.

District education officer Chandra Shekhar Kumar issued the directive and a case was then registered against the headmaster at the sadar block of the district.

Sources said as soon as Kumar got the information that poor quality materials were being used in the construction of the building, he asked the officials of the district education project to conduct a probe.

A three-member team of the district education project carried out the investigation and found Thakur “guilty” of misappropriation of funds during the construction of a new building within the school premises.

The report was submitted to Kumar by the team, comprising executive engineer Mahesh Mishra, assistant engineer Alok Kumar and junior engineer of district education project Bimal Jha.

The district education officer told The Telegraph: “I got the information that poor quality material was being used in the construction of the building at Musa Shah Middle School. I asked the officials of the district education project to probe and collect evidences before registering an FIR. The headmaster was found misappropriating with government funds. A case has been registered against him under Town police station of the district yesterday (Tuesday).”

City superintendent of police Kumar Aikley confirmed that Thakur has been found guilty. Aikley said: “A case has been registered against Awadh Bihari Thakur under Section 409 (criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent) of the Indian Penal Code. The section is non-bailable. We will probe the case according to the charges levelled at the headmaster. However, it is too early to arrive at any conclusion.”

Sources said the probe team has collected evidence from the construction site such as video footage of the building that has developed cracks, photographs, samples of raw material used in the construction before submitting the report to the district education officer.