STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Expressing grave concern over the withdrawal of promotion orders of 630 Masters promoted in February 2014, Harsh Dev Singh, JKNPP Chairman and former Education Minister, on Wednesday described the government order as highly offensive and opprobrious.
He said that after repeated assurances doled out to the Masters promotees of 2014 by the Education Department that their much delayed adjustments and postings would be ensured in a time bound manner, the recent order had come as a bolt from the blue wherein the promotions of 630 promotees were withdrawn on frivolous considerations.
He pointed out that in the promotion list of Masters issued in February 2014, 1,193 teachers were promoted as Masters in Jammu Division but only 165 were adjusted on pick and choose basis with 998 promotees continuing to work as teachers despite their promotions.
He said that in Kashmir Division 900 odd teachers
were promoted during the same time and all of them were adjusted as Masters during the same period.
Singh regretted that the said left over promotees of Jammu region continued their struggle for adjustments as Masters in conformity with their promotion orders only to be told after three years that their promotion orders had been rescinded.
He said that while upholding the promotions of 368 masters out of the remaining 998, the government arbitrarily withdrew the promotions of 630 promotees of Jammu region on the grounds that they had passed their B.Ed degrees through distance mode. He said that while the government was within its rights to take action against fraudulent degrees or the degrees obtained from study centres of outside universities but the invalidation of B.Ed degrees obtained through distance mode of Jammu University was a ludicrous proposition which defied all logic and rationale.
He said that even otherwise several thousands of candidates had earned their degrees through the correspondence courses under distance mode of Jammu University and got government jobs in various State Government Departments who too would be prejudicially affected by the recent order of the Education Department.
Harsh further disclosed that several of the demoted masters had obtained their initial appointments as teachers on the basis of the distance mode degrees of Jammu University and declaring the said degrees invalid for promotion by the Education Department at present juncture not only displayed incongruity in government functioning but also revealed total intellectual bankruptcy on the part of decision makers.
Furthermore promoting those Masters of Kashmir region who obtained degrees even through distance mode and neglecting Jammu youth was highly obnoxious and discriminatory which had totally unmasked the tall claims of Coalition Government particularly the hypocrite BJP leaders, he said.
Calling upon the Education Minister to review the nasty order, Singh called for cancellation of the order invalidating the distance mode degrees of University of Jammu and restoration of promotion of all the genuinely promoted
masters.
He said that JKNPP shall fight out the highly obnoxious order of the Education Department tooth and nail in the streets and in the courts and ensure justice to aggrieved Masters at all costs. If the degrees of Jammu University are not being honoured by the incumbent rulers, then problems lies with such rulers not with our candidates, asserted Singh.
