SHILLONG: The High Court of Meghalaya has taken exception to the haste adopted by the health department in extending the date of interviews for the post of nurses.
The case is related to the selection process for non-bonded nurses since 2013 which, however, was cancelled by the government and again called for fresh recruitment.
During the hearing of the pending case on Monday, the court said though extension of time was granted to complete the selection process by October 31, it noticed a strange position that even before filing of any application, the applicants had, in fact, already taken a decision on October 16 to hold the interviews from October 23 to November 30.
“For the purpose of any decision to extend the process beyond October 31, an appropriate application ought to have been moved well in time, seeking previous approval of this court. However, it appears that the officers of the department concerned, showing scant respect to the order of the court, and of their own, chose to fix the date of interviews even beyond the date of completion fixed by this court”, the order said.
According to the court, the approach on the part of the department gave a prima facie impression that the process of the court was rather taken for granted and it was quite intriguing to notice that despite being aware of the outer limit fixed by the court, the department did not in the first place take all the requisite steps to expedite the matter and then, of its own, fixed the interviews up to November 30 probably with the assumption that the High Court has no option but to extend the time as fixed by them.
After the court expressed reservations in the matter, the government counsel S. Sen Gupta sought time to call the concerned officers in the court.
Later, the additional senior government advocate K. Khan had appeared with David D. Sangma, joint secretary to health and family welfare department.
Regarding the queries of the court about the method adopted for calling the candidates for interviews, it was suggested that a notice to that effect was published in the newspaper. However, the additional senior government advocate and also the joint secretary were unable to show such a newspaper and were even unable to give the name of the newspaper in which such a notice was published and sought for a day’s time.
“At present, we keep other aspects pending for consideration. Though, it appears rather necessary to deal with the laxity on the part of the government in not ensuring timely compliance of the order passed in this matter; and such laxity and other related aspects are proposed to be dealt with in this matter but in the interest of the candidates concerned, it is provided that the applicants shall continue with the interviews uninterruptedly, irrespective of pendency of this matter”, the court observed
The matter will come up for hearing on Tuesday.
