HC puts on hold appointments
SHILLONG: The High Court of Meghalaya on Tuesday issued a stay order against appointments in various vacant posts in the Agriculture department.
The stay order was issued after hearing on a writ petition filed by 36 candidates who had applied for the posts, Chief Justice PC Pant issued the stay order after admitting the writ petition.
Lawyer of the aggrieved candidates M Syngkon said they had filed the writ petition questioning the appointment process for filling up the vacant posts in the Agriculture department.
He said that there were glaring discrepancies in the whole appointment process.
The lawyer informed that the Meghalaya Public Service Commission had cancelled the written test at the very last minute and decided to directly conduct the personal interviews.
“It was also found that unqualified candidates who were earlier rejected were allowed to appear in the personal interview. What was more shocking is that seven of the unqualified candidates found their place in the list of successful candidates who were eligible for appointments,” Syngkon said.
The lawyer for the petitioners said that the decision to select the unqualified candidates was totally in contravention of the rules as given in the advertisement which was issued to fill up these vacant posts.
“The advertisement had clearly mentioned that the applications of all the unqualified candidates would automatically stand rejected,” the lawyer said.
On April 20 2012, the advertisement was issued for making appointments to 16 posts of Grade III, Meghalaya Agriculture Service.
However, the written test fixed for February 7, 2014, for the posts was cancelled arbitrarily by MPSC by changing the selection process.
Moreover, the MPSC notified 49 vacancies instead of the previous 16 vacancies to allegedly make backdoor appointments through personal interviews instead of written tests.
The MPSC subsequently invited candidates for personal interviews without holding written examination. The interviews were conducted from February 17, 2014, to February 21 after issuing a rejection list of several candidates. The result was declared on February 28.
What surprised the aggrieved petitioners was that the seven candidates whose applications were rejected were included in the list of those who are qualified for the posts.
The next hearing of the case will be held after one month. The Government and other concerned parties have been asked to file counter affidavits within four weeks.
Earlier, Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma, who also holds the Agriculture portfolio, had denied in the Assembly in the last budget session that there was any favouritism shown on the part of the MPSC in the appointment of 49 vacant posts in the Agriculture department.
The Chief Minister, laying a statement in the Assembly on a call attention moved by Chokpot legislator Clifford R Marak on the news report under caption “Another Job Scam hits the State,” had said that the eligibility criteria for any recruitment to any vacancies arising in any department were set by that department and such criteria are prescribed in the service rules. In all the recruitments, these criteria were clearly specified in the requisition and the MPSC issued the advertisement accordingly.
“In the instant recruitment, there was no mention made by the department that weightage should be given to candidates who had pursued the courses and acquired their degrees through Government quota. It was never specified that special consideration would be given to candidates of senior batch from among such Government-sponsored candidates,” the Chief Minister had said.
He had also said that similarly there was no mentioned that preference would be given to gold medalists or persons with particular achievements. “The advertisement issued by the commission carried only those criteria set forth by the department requisition. The selection of eligible candidates by the Commission was based strictly on these criteria,” Dr Sangma said.
The filling up of 49 vacancies under the agriculture department is snowballing into a major controversy. Candidates belonging to the state quota have been neglected and gold medal winners among the candidates have not been selected. As per reports, out of the total 98 candidates belonging to the 2008 batch onwards who completed their BSC Agriculture through the State quota, only 16 got selected while as many as 39 candidates who got selected are from outside the State quota. Even gold medalists were not selected, sources had informed.
The interview of candidates for filling up the posts of agriculture development officer, horticulture development officer and scientific officer under the agriculture department were conducted recently by the Meghalaya Public Service Commission. MPSC conducted the personal interviews from February 17 to 21 while the result of the interview was declared on February 28.