NGO for action if Education Minister does not resign by Sep 9

Panaji, Sep 7 (UNI) Goan NGO Utt Goenkara today threatened to initiate ''appropriate'' action if Education Minister Atanasio Monserrate fails to resign by September 9 for filing an affidavit in May last year before the Election Commission with allegedly false claim of passing Secondary School Certificate Examination.

''Mr Monserrate should realise that money cannot buy everything.

He should come out clean and explain to the people of Goa as to why he had lied about his educational qualification,'' the NGO spokesman and advocate Aires Rodrigues said here today.

Being a public servant, he said the Minister's acts are open to public scrutiny and he should not dodge the issue at hand by saying ''no comments'' or that he would come out at an ''appropriate time.'' The minister was originally asked to disclose the truth by today, but the NGO has extended the deadline by two more days to enable the minister to ''realise how serious the act of fudging his own educational qualifications was.'' The NGO activists, he said, would meet here on September 10 to finalise the plan of action against the minister if he failed to prove his qualification or resign from the Cabinet.

Mr Rodrigues said he has also invited Father Anthony Joseph, headmaster of St Theresa's High School, Bandr, to visit Goa with all official records to prove beyond doubt that the minister had not even completed class eight. Mr Monserrate had allegedly claimed to have passed SSC in this school.

Mr Monserrate was inducted into the Cabinet last month, following the resignation of Finance Minister Dayanand Narvekar.

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