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| Report submitted on fixing seniority of KAS officers gathering dust for last one & half years | | | Asif Iqbal Naik
Early Times Report
SRINAGAR, Aug 3: In the much publicized case of fixing of seniority list of Kashmir Administrative Services (KAS) officers the report submitted around one and half years back by a five member committee headed by Bharat Bushan Vyas nominated by then state government is gathering the dust in the Civil Secretariat as the same is still wrapped into the cover.
As reported by Early Times in its 16-03-2017 edition, the committee held an elaborated two rounds of meeting with aggrieved petitioners as well as with the beneficiary officials of the impugned KAS seniority list and gave patient hearing to both sides. During the course of four hour long meeting on 15-03-2017, all the stakeholders presented its view points and resolve up on the government to solve the issue in terms of the court directions.
After marathon meeting, the committee prepared the report, the fate of which is still unknown as two KAS officers from 1999 batch namely Mohinder Singh and Manzoor Ahmed had already retired this year without availing the any service benefits due to no fault of theirs. The government on the intervention of then Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had on February 21 initiated steps to resolve much delayed KAS seniority issue and set deadline of 15 days to Chief Secretary to submit its finding in this regard which according to petitioner is a historic step of the former Chief Minister that has taken a lead to resolve the crises arising out of KAS seniority issue in state which is pending finalization for the last 8 years at that day due to various court cases, but to this disappointment of many the issue is yet to be resolved as after not finding any head way.
Some of the KAS officers pressed for monitory scheme to release Special Grade allegedly to some undeserving and contrary to the directions of Apex court which was again got stayed in the court by some aggrieved. Sources informed that KAS cadre controlling department GAD has always allegedly been a source of manipulation for every batch of officers be it 1984, 92 or 1999 batch when bulk of officers came to be recruited. In 1984, the government dragged the issue unnecessarily up to Supreme Court of India when it had finally to accept defeat at the hands of Javed Iqbal Balwan in a case Javed Iqbal VS state of Jammu and Kashmir when finally the direct recruits were given their postings in year 1992. The aggrieved allege that some blue eyed officers who themselves were backdoor appointees managed to run such ugly show in GAD for years together to twist rules to their advantage and even managed out of turn promotions into KAS and then IAS.
The present litigation of KAS started when a set of officers close to power corridors in government in 2003-2004 who at that time were generally with ministers as OSDs, Private Secretaries or were posted in Chief Secretary Office, Chief Minister section managed to manipulate the cases of induction of officers in KAS in their favor despite the fact that no slots were virtually available for them in their feeding services.
Pertinently, the dispute pertaining to seniority of KAS Officers is unsettled for the last 10 years wherein state government instead of implementing the KAS rules 1979/2008 preferred to keep it hanging due to various litigations. In case the fresh court directions will be implemented by the government, some blue eyed officers officiating at the level of Special scale on the bases of impugned seniority list and without resorting to the review mechanism as provided under rule 15(4) of KAS 2008 rules are to be removed to accommodate the equal number of officers from the petitioners as the apex court has directed the state to allow the Special Scale as a matter of officiating arrangements by strictly adopting the seniority list affirmed by the learned single judge in the judgment dated 8-11-2013.
It is important to mention that before single bench, the petitioners had provided the list of 49 KAS officers inducted without slots, but to the government they have provided a list of additional 30 officers having been inducted without slots. |
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