Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
JAMMU: With the Jammu and Kashmir Government continuing the practice of so-called ‘stop gap arrangement’ for years and decades, in flagrant violation of the Supreme Court of India order, only eight of the 40-odd departments have referred their gazetted vacancies to the State Public Service Commission (PSC) in the last one year.
Administrative secretaries of all the Government departments are bound by the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Service (reference of vacancies and holding of meetings of Departmental Promotion Committees) Rules 2005, notified by the Government on June 14th, 2005, to refer all the gazetted and non-gazetted posts, falling vacant in a particular year, to the PSC and Services Selection Board (SSB) respectively, every year by 15th of January for the purpose of making direct recruitment without delay.
Rule 2 says: “The departments shall refer vacancies falling under direct recruitment quota to the Public Service Commission and Services Selection Board, as the case may be, by the 15th of January every year”.
Under Rule 3, all the Administrative Departments are bound to submit Annual Status Reports to the General Administration Department (GAD) by 31st of January every year reflecting therein the number and status of the vacancies, posts referred for direct recruitment or promotion to the PSC, SSB and other recruitment committees and Departmental Promotion Committees (DPCs).
In a chain of communications to Commissioner-Secretary GAD, PSC has emphasised that the 2005 -Rules were an obligation of the Supreme Court of India decision in the service writ petition titled Suraj Prakash Gupta & Others versus State of J&K and others. “An exercise undertaken by the Commission reveals that the aforesaid Rules have been violated by almost all the departments except General Administration Department”, the PSC Secretary wrote to Commissioner-Secretary GAD.
STATE TIMES has noticed that all but eight government departments have treated the PSC’s communications as well as Supreme Court of India directions with contempt.
In all, eight departments have referred 1592 vacancies to the PSC. Just three departments – School Education Department, Health & Medical Education Department and GAD -have referred 1505 vacancies while as five other departments have referred not more than 87 vacancies to the PSC.
Documents accessed by this newspaper indicate that the School Education Department has referred 1,059 vacancies of Lecturers (10+2). While as the GAD has referred 277 vacancies of the KAS feeding services, Health & Medical Education Department has referred 169 vacancies of Medical Officers, Assistant Professors, Assistant Commissioners of Food Safety and Deputy Medical Superintendents.
In addition to the bulk of the three departments, Agriculture Production Department has referred 11 vacancies of Soil Conservation Assistants and Technical Assistants, Forest Department 12 vacancies of Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF), Law Department 11 vacancies of District Litigation Officers and 11 vacancies of Munsiffs, Animal & Sheep Husbandry Department 24 vacancies of Veterinary Assistant Surgeons (Sheep) and Tourism Department 18 vacancies of Divisional Town Planners.
The year 2016 has marked a slight improvement as in the previous year only the Cooperative Department and GAD had referred some vacancies to the PSC. “It is an open secret that the administrative Secretaries who have scant regard for law, rules and procedures have been hiding and sitting over the vacancies with no fear of accountability. Some of them have developed vested interest in the status quo as they elevate junior officers on stop-gap arrangement on senior positions and keep them there for years and decades”, said a senior retired IAS officer.
“They also accommodate many of their in-service favourites on the vacancies reserved for direct recruitment.
They even defer DPCs (Department Promotion Committee meetings) for years under the excuses of litigation and other flimsy grounds and place their favourites on unlimited stop-gap arrangement. This is a notorious industry in Civil Secretariat”, added the retired bureaucrat. He asserted that nobody can function as “incharge” and no stop-gap arrangement is valid for more than six months.
Sensing the politicians’ and the bureaucrats’ vested interest in stop-gap arrangement, Secretary PSC had last year written to Secretary GAD: “Under Rules of 2005, the tendency to institute stop-gap arrangement against promotion quota and make-shift arrangements against direct recruitment quota was intended to be checked but the same does not seem to have fructified and in the process there is apprehension that vacancies which have become due for direct recruitment have gone un-utilized paving way for make-shift arrangements by the Administrative Departments which is being resorted to as a convenient method to perpetuate ad-hoc system at the cost of direct recruitments and at times, to obviate the need for production of documents statutorily required for utilization of promotion quota”.
Sources said that Chairman PSC, Lateef-uz-Zaman Deva had also personally complained to Chief Secretary and Governor that most of the administrative Secretaries were sitting over the vacancies for their vested interest. Notwithstanding the assurances held out to the PSC, around 30 government departments have yet again observed the rules in breach.