Oct. 11: Five legislators from this Lower Assam district have joined hands to challenge a lobby of allegedly corrupt officials in the elementary education office.

Led by Mohibul Hoque of the Congress, the legislators today handed a memorandum to deputy commissioner Ganesh Chandra Kalita, seeking a magisterial probe into irregularities in the process of selecting school teachers.

The delegation claimed that the list of candidates drawn up by district elementary education officer Khabiruddin Ahmed and his team against vacancies in 2,357 primary, middle English and venture schools and madarsas was replete with anomalies.

More than 450 posts in these schools are at present vacant and 5,000-odd candidates are vying for them.

The list of selected candidates has not been made public yet.

Mohibul Hoque was accompanied by Rasool Hoque, Hafiz Basiruddin Ahmed of the Assam United Democratic Front, Independent legislator Afzalur Rahman and Motiur Rahman Mondal of the Congress.

Kalita assured the legislators that he would “do the needful”.

Mondal claimed that there had been gross violation of rules and norms notified by the government for the selection of candidates. He said Ahmed and Sushil Rabidas, the chairman of the District Elementary Education Advisory Board, had shortlisted candidates for appointment as teachers in lower primary, middle English, middle venture schools and madarsas in violation of the specified norms.

Neither Ahmed nor Rabidas were available for comment.

The legislators accused Ahmed, Rabidas and some other members of the advisory board of accepting lakhs of rupees as bribes from some candidates. They said there was reason to believe that many “deserving but financially weak candidates” might have been denied the chance of being appointed as they could not afford to pay bribes.

The legislators demanded a thorough investigation into the selection procedure before finalising the list.

Mohibul Hoque said that following complaints from hundreds of candidates regarding the alleged collection of bribes by Ahmed and Rabidas, he had asked Ahmed to meet him at the circuit house here. But his pleas fell on deaf ears.

“Finally, I took Congress workers and the candidates to Ahmed’s office. But still Ahmed did not pay any heed to my allegations. So four other MLAs and I submitted a memorandum to the Dhubri deputy commissioner and urged him to order a magisterial inquiry into the selection procedure immediately.”