Govt promoting adhocism, rules being thrown to winds: PSC

Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 3: Holding the State Government responsible for delay in recruitments and promotions, the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission has observed that its recommendations aimed at streamlining the entire process have not been taken seriously by various departments thereby acting as stumbling block in fast disposal of promotions and recruitment cases. Moreover, the Commission has accused the Government of promoting adhocism by making appointments in relaxation of rules against direct quota posts at the cost of deserving and eligible candidates.
In its latest annual report tabled in the State Legislature today, the PSC has elaborated the difficulties being faced in the recruitments and the promotions due to non-cooperation from various Government departments and subsequent delays in this regard.
“The response of the departments to the issues raised by the Commission from time to time has not always been as timely as desired resulting into delay in selection/regularization process sometimes for want of even a minor clarification”, the report said.
“Though the departments are required to send their formal requisitions for direct recruitment in Form-1 complete in all respects yet many times departments have been found to leave various columns of Forum-1 incomplete as such some important information remains missing and results into unnecessary and avoidable delays”, the Commission said in the report.
Pointing out that practice of the Government making adhoc appointments/ regular appointments in relaxation of rules against direct quota posts still continues, the Commission said, “neither copies of such Government orders are endorsed to the Commission nor are details of the posts filled made available thereby it becomes difficult to monitor such appointments”, adding “in some cases, adhoc appointees have been regularized or regular appointments are made in relaxation of rules without fulfilling the constitutional requirement of consulting the Commission”.
According to the report, the Commission, during the year 2012-13, made a request to the General Administration Department to advise all the departments to ensure copies of orders regarding adhoc appointments and stop-gap arrangements are invariably endorsed to the Commission but only some departments acted upon the instructions issued by the GAD. “It is necessary that these instructions are adhered to by all the departments and in this regard the State Government needs to devise a mechanism to ensure compliance”, the Commission has stressed in the report.
“Even while making adhoc appointments, which should normally be avoided, the concerned departments don’t observe rules strictly, use pick and choose methods and don’t adhere to quota for promotion thereby causing hardships to the deserving and eligible candidates”, the Commission said, adding “in case any adhoc arrangement becomes inevitable, the Administrative Department may consult the Commission with the request to recommend candidate(s) strictly as per the merit from amongst the candidates in the waiting list”.
About the promotions, the report said, “the majority of promotion cases remain pending for want of issuance of a final seniority list, annual performance reports, integrity certificates, recruitment rules and the year wise breakup of vacancies with reference to the cause of vacancies”.
Pointing towards OPG arrangement, the Commission said, “many Administrative Departments in general and Health and Family Welfare Department in particular have made OPG arrangement on pick and choose basis despite the fact that while making OPG arrangement same procedure should be adopted as in making regular promotions”, adding “the pick and choose arrangements result in litigations and invariably adverse orders from the courts”.
The Commission has observed that some Administrative Departments like Industries and Commerce, Agriculture, Sericulture and Tourism etc have released grades without consulting the DPC/PSC in violation of statutory rules.
Stating that several departments were not furnishing the proposals to the Departmental Promotion Committee in a prescribed manner, the Commission said, “the Administrative Departments, while furnishing proposals for the promotion of officers, leave several deficiencies vis-à-vis APRs, final seniority lists, integrity certificates, details of court cases, roaster points for reserved categories, eligibility list indicating last officer cleared for promotion by the DPC”.
“Despite repeated discussions, both formal and informal, with the concerned authorities, very little improvement has been noticed in providing of information sought by the Commission”, the report said, adding “sometimes the statements furnished by the departments are not based on facts, which subsequently places the Commission in an embarrassing position as the new facts are pointed out by aggrieved officers after the completion of the proceedings of the DPC”.
Describing Recruitment Rules of most of the departments obsolete, the Commission said that these rules don’t meet the changing requirements. Many new subjects have been introduced in different universities and large number of candidates have qualified in these subjects. However, such candidates are ineligible to apply for the posts as they don’t fulfill the requisite qualifications as provided in the existing Recruitment Rules.
“In many departments, the Recruitment Rules have been framed way-back in sixties and in departments like Agriculture, the Recruitment Rules are so complex that it becomes difficult to consider officers for promotion”, the Commission said, adding “one of the causes of litigation could also be attributed to faulty Recruitment Rules”. It has recommended massive review of the Recruitment Rules for necessary amendments.
Underlining the need to review mechanism of vigilance clearance, the Commission said, “a time frame needs to be set-up for the Vigilance Department to provide vigilance clearance”, adding “in respect of the departments where it is not possible for the Vigilance Organization to provide the vigilance clearance of all the officers due to non-availability of data/service records, the negative list of the officers with the Vigilance Organization could be considered by the DPC and others would be deemed to have been cleared from the vigilance angle”.
The Commission hopes that in future the recommendations made by the Commission in its Annual Reports would be seriously considered by the departments.

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