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| Backdoor appointments recoil | | |
Class IV employees in the Commercial Taxes Department have been
holding demonstrations both in Jammu and Srinagar for last ten days,
protesting against the termination of their services after 8 years of
their appointment. As many as 500 class IV employees in the department
are under threat of losing their job, after serving in their
respective offices in the Excise and Commercial Tax department as a
result of the High Court order holding their appointment null and
void. These appointments were made through back door, without proper
advertisement and going through the other prescribed procedure, in the
year 1996. In response to a writ filed in the J&K High Court by some
aggrieved, the Court quashed these appointments and directed the
department to initiate process for fresh appointments on the jobs,
after advertising the post widely and holding regular interview of the
applicants. The High Court had directed that the process should be
completed within six months of its order. Accordingly 800 posts of
guards in the Commercial Taxes department and about 100 other class IV
posts were advertised through newspapers. In response to these several
thousand unemployed youth, with requisite qualifications and merit
applied for the jobs, after fulfilling all the formalities and
spending some money on the purchase of computerized forms, attaching
their certificates and even giving an affidavit. It was in March 1995
that the exercise had started. About one and half year has lapsed
since then, no further action in recruitment of the applicants has
been taken. No interviews have been conducted. This long rope given in
the matter has prompted the incumbent employees to organize themselves
and collectively protest against their threatened ouster. In the year
1996 and after that about 40,000 backdoor appointments had been made
in various government departments. In most of these cases the High
Court later struck these appointments, prompting the employees facing
ouster holding protest demonstrations and in certain cases they have
been given relief by their re-employment on the jobs, it is claimed.
The protesting class IV employees in the Commercial Taxes department,
whose services are under termination allege that while in some other
departments, where too the High Court had quashed the appointments,
the affected employees have been readjusted, while in their case the
government is adopting apathetic attitude. However, since their
appointments have been struck by the High Court and on the direction
of the Court process for fresh appointments has already been taken,
the best course for the incumbent employees was to apply afresh for
the jobs and compete with the fresh applicants. The other course
before them was to knock the doors of the Court and appeal against
their appointments being held irregular and hence quashed. It appears
that these employees have not adopted any of these two courses and
instead are relying more on the agitational course, for redressal of
their grievance. However, this a piquant situation for the government,
who is forced to resort to an inhuman action of terminating the
services of some class IV employees after they have put in 8 years
service, while on the other hand the fate of several thousand
applicants who have applied for these posts in response to the
advertisement for the same is hanging in balance. However, the moot
question is as to what action the authorities have taken against those
who made these backdoor appointments. While the seekers for jobs avail
of every opportunity, going through all the ordeals of fulfilling the
formalities and then after the appointment of few of them and their
putting in service for some years, their appointments are quashed by
the Court and they are thrown jobless, but in most of these cases
those responsible for their ordeal, by making appointments without
strictly following the required procedure, go scot free.
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