Thursday, March 28, 2024
 
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New Recruitment Policy: for whose benefit?



By K B Jandial




The PDP-BJP Govt. has landed itself in a political quagmire by its hasty announcements and decisions which have either raked up controversies or forced it to roll back. The Govt. began its inning with a controversy with Mufti’s indebtedness to Pakistan, militants and separatists for peaceful conduct of Assembly polls. It had not yet died down a huge political storm hit the coalition in its infancy on granting political space to separatists and release of Masarat Alam followed by frequent display of Pakistani flags in the valley.
Announcement of AIIMS for the Valley and “shut down” of ongoing artificial lake in Jammu sparked an agitation in Jammu and threat of counter agitation in the Valley on IIT & IIM. By another decision livelihood of 70,000 to 80,000 poor youth engaged by Omar Govt. as daily wagers etc were taken away by dispensing with their services.

Selection for the constitutional position of Members of the Public Service Commission too ran into rough weather when some of the selected “outstanding” persons were found to have tainted past. The cabinet rolled back on its list and came up with another list of “persons of integrity and eminence” which too contained a name who did not even qualify to be a member and the Governor most likely would have returned it forcing the Govt. to again go for change. Some of the names were unknown to the people and they had to go for research to know their “celebrated past”. It appears that the one who is suggesting these names holds a different "who is who" of the State.



Is J&K scarce of persons of “integrity and eminence” that forced the Govt. to pick up lower rung officers for PSC whose Chairman’s salary and status is equivalent to the Chief Secretary and the Members to the Principal Secretary to Govt.? It would be a hard decision for the Governor to approve the third amended list, earlier two having been returned.



In the process fate of 99 already selected KAS candidates of 2013 batch, awaiting Commission’s approval and recommendation, continues to hang in balance due to non-existence of PSC since September last. It can happen only in J&K. The delay in sending the medical report of these selected candidates in time by Medical College, Srinagar coupled with the callous inaction of NC-Cong Govt. in not filling up vacancies of members of PSC for four years that made PSC defunct, cost these future bureaucrats at least one year of their career. 2014 batch aspirants are waiting for one year for prelims. Is anybody worried about them? Could there be ordinance for 2013 batch?



State’s new Recruitment policy was launched with fanfare on April 19, this year for “fast track recruitment on contract basis”. The appointees would be regularized on the basis of their annual performance after seven years and till then they would get less than half the salary than regular appointees. Vacancies of Assistant Surgeons, Lecturers and Teachers would be filled from amongst the local human resource at the district level who must work there only till regularization. It evoked strong public reaction.



It had untenable features - constitutional authority (PSC Member with Principal Secretary status) made a member of the DC headed the District Committees, marginalizing PSC and SSB by acquiring powers to take away posts from their purview, district wise gazetted recruitment of State and Divisional cadre posts which could lead to serious issue of merit and seniority on convergence, absence of mandatory reservation quota, burdening the over burdened DC with full time job of selection etc. With the recruiting agencies are sidelined and controlled by the Govt. the entire process becomes a suspect.




As expected the pro-active Governor returned the draft J & K Special Recruitment Ordinance, 2015 with a slew of objections. He has reportedly also raised an issue of rushing through the policy through ordinance when it could have been discussed in the budget session of the legislature.



Faced with embarrassment, the Govt. set up a Cabinet Sub Committee headed by the Dy. Chief Minister. It finalized a revised draft which intriguingly has not been put in the public domain, most probably for fear of criticism.



Some objectionable provisions stood deleted in the revised Policy and mandatory job reservations found its place. DC is out of selection. State and Divisional Level Selection Committees for gazetted posts would now be headed by a Member of PSC and District Level Selection Committee by a SSB member for non gazetted posts.” For gazetted posts, second member could either be co-opted or a subject expert while District Committee will have district head of the indenting office and one Deputy Secretary or above as members.



Interestingly, it also claimed that the PSC and the SSB would continue to be responsible for making appointments to the referred regular vacancies. How two different set of recruitment- contractual and regular can is possible simultaneously? Is the Govt. mulling to segregate sanctioned posts into contractual and regular ones?



Why in the first place the existing recruitment system is being replaced? Did the Govt. visit the factors that are “delaying” the selection process? Mostly old recruitment rules are not updated and invite judicial intervention when posts are notified. The PSC has over 30% vacancies of staff and SSB craving for increase in its members from four to 8 or ten with additional staff that would have ensured fast track selection otherwise also. Fair and just selection would be the causality in the new scheme.



The Govt. sources justify the policy on the ground of “huge” pendency of vacancies with PSC and SSB including Medical Officers, Asstt Professors of Colleges, AEs etc. The records do not support it. In February 2014, the PSC selected 769 Medical Officers on fast tract basis, within six months of the posts referred to it. The truncated PSC (Chairman+ 3members) conducted interviews through single Member Board with two outside the state Experts. Twenty one experts were drawn from 21 Medical colleges from eight different States to complete the process in shortest possible and fair manner. No more posts of MO have been referred to PSC. About 1650 posts of Asstt Professors are pending for more three years due to High Court’s stay order. About 150 posts of AE civil, 70 AE Electrical and 35 AE Mechanical are pending because the PSC is defunct.
Similar situation must be true for SSB which has reportedly cleared over 15000 posts last year with written test taken on court order. The vacancies with it must not be more than eight to nine thousands.



The composition of Selection Committee as proposed in the policy is already in place in both the agencies. An officer from the Secretariat on the District Committee would control the selection process.



Under PSC’s regulations, the Chairman constitutes Selection Board a day before the interviews. Headed by a PSC Member two subject experts are taken from outside the State who has major say in selection having 75 % of earmarked interview points. Complete secrecy is maintained and the identity of the experts is denied even to PSC members. When such a dispensation is already in place why PSC is interfered through a statute?



The Supreme Court in its landmark judgment in State of Karnataka vs. Umadevi had held that “the Governments, both the Central and the States have been engaging employees on a temporary basis and after some time regularizing their services, this practice has been held to be bad and contrary to the law of the land. Our constitutional scheme envisages employment by the Government and its Instrumentalities on the basis of a procedure established in that behalf. Equality of opportunity is the hallmark of the constitutional scheme”.



Accordingly, the J&K Govt. had enacted a law - J&K Civil Services (Special Provisions) Act, 2010 whose section 14 banned ad hoc or contractual or consolidated appointments. Its clause (I ) says, “ With effect from the commencement of this Act, no appointment shall be made by any department against any post on ad hoc or contractual or consolidated or temporary basis and all the vacant posts shall be filled up strictly in accordance with the rules governing the recruitment to the respective services or posts.” Clause II provides action against those who make such appointments.


The recruitment bodies have to invite applications, scrutinize applications with reference to concerned recruitment rules, hold written test if number of eligible candidates is large, invite short listed candidates for interviews and make selection. As this process has to be undergone then why not engage them on regular basis? Why the appointed youth are subjected to avoidable uncertainty for five years? Won’t it promote corruption? Who records honest assessment in APRs otherwise also?



PSC is an independent constitutional body insulated from Govt.’s influence and control, and conducts its business as per its own regulations. The framers of the constitution clearly kept it outside the interference of the Govt. and made the removal of Chairman and Members extremely difficult. More over the Constitution debar them from any future service under the State.



Under section 133 of the State Constitution the Govt. is obliged to consult the PSC on all matters relating to methods of recruitment to civil services and on principles to be followed in making appointments. Amending the pattern of recruitment from regular basis to contractual, for which recruitment rules don’t have any provision, consultation with the PSC is mandatory. As PSC does not exist it is imperative that first the Govt. makes PSC functional and then proceed with the changes.



Has the policy been camouflaged to address State’s resource crunch by paying half the salary to appointees for five years? Remember Omar Govt. too had introduced policy of stipendiary mode but the appointments were on regular basis. The scheme was rolled back after its electoral rout in Lok Sabha poll. Will the youth wait for next elections?



(The writer is former Secretary information, health, transport, CAPD departments and a member of Public Service Commission, feedback: [email protected])


(Opinions expressed in write-ups/articles/Letters are the sole responsibility of the authors and they may not represent the Scoop News)



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