*Juniors are placed on higher posts in violation of rules
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, June 3: Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services Regulations are just irrelevant documents for majority of the departments of State Government as they are being flouted with impunity to shower undue benefits upon ‘blue-eyed’ officers and officials. Moreover, there is absolutely no focus on initiating required steps to ensure that entire administrative structure functions strictly as per the rule book.
This can be gauged from the report of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission for the year 2014-15 tabled in the Legislature today. The Commission has once again rued that its annual recommendations to the departments are not being taken seriously despite the fact that these carry immense importance for overcoming deficiencies wherever prevailing in the functioning of the departments during past many decades.
As per Article 85 of the J&K CSR, Own Pay and Grade (OPG) arrangement shall not last beyond six months. However, it has been seen that officers placed in OPG continue beyond 6 months in blatant violation of rules and spirit of judgment of the Apex Court passed in the case titled “Suraj Prakash and Others Versus State of J&K and Others, the Public Service Commission said.
“Many Administrative Departments in general and Health and Family Welfare, Public Works and Revenue Departments in particular have made OPG arrangements on pick and choose basis despite the fact that same procedure should be adopted as in making regular promotions while making OPG arrangements”, the report said, adding “the pick and choose policy is not only unfair and detrimental to those left out but also results into litigations and invariably adverse orders from the courts”.
Moreover, several Administrative Departments like Industries and Commerce, Agriculture, Sericulture and Tourism have released grades without consulting the Departmental Promotion Committee/Public Service Commission, which is against the statutory rules, the report said.
Stating that DPC clears the officers for regularization on the principle of availability of vacancies, placement and eligibility, whichever is in accordance with the Government Order No.743-GAD of 2007, the PSC said, “due to delayed placement of eligible officers against higher posts, they are put to a disadvantaged position”, adding even this Government order needs to be reviewed as it is adversely affecting officers who for no plausible reason or justification are left out”.
“In scores of cases the Commission has noticed that without any justification the departments ignore otherwise eligible officers and juniors are placed on higher posts”, the report said while stressing that the condition of placement for regularization needs to be reviewed to ensure fairway and justice to all.
Noting with concern that proposals for regularization are not being submitted by some of the Administrative Departments in the prescribed manner, the Public Service Commission said, “some of the departments even don’t represent in the DPC meetings and others are not duly authenticating the Recruitment Rules while submitting the proposals”.
About Annual Performance Reports, the Commission said that APRs received from various departments are often found incomplete, adding “in case of Housing and Urban Development Department, Industries and Commerce Department, Health and Medical Education Department and Finance Department, the APRs were submitted without reviewing and accepting as required under Rules”. It has further been observed that most of the departments furnish work and conduct report as an alternative of APRs.
Stating that this practice must be stopped, the Commission said that Administrative Departments while furnishing the proposals should make sure that APRs are properly reviewed/accepted by the competent authority and are complete in all respect.
“The integrity certificate being received from various departments like Health and Medical Education and Technical Education are not counter signed by the concerned Administrative Secretaries”, the report said, adding “after submitting the proposals the departments like Finance, Higher Education, Forest and Rural Development never bothered to respond to the communications regarding deficiencies or any query regarding the proposal even after protracted correspondence from the Public Service Commission”.
Observing that the Recruitment Rules of most of the departments are obsolete and don’t meet the changing requirements, the report said, “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 qualification 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. Moreover, for many services like Forest Protection Force, the Recruitment Rules have not been framed”, the report said, adding “one of the causes of litigations could be attributed to faculty Recruitment Rules”.
As per the report, there is a disparity in the syllabus of KAS Probationers and IAS Probationers and the same needs to be harmonized. “The departments particularly Forest should update the schedules attached with the Recruitment Rules pertaining to direct recruitment posts through Competitive Exam”, the PSC said, adding “there is a need to conduct departmental examinations for some posts like ACF/Range Officers/Foresters in the Forest Department for which presently no examination is prescribed”.
Laying thrust on reviewing the mechanism of vigilance clearance, the report said, “the delay in submitting the vigilance clearance causes delay in clearance of the proposals”, adding “a time-frame needs to be set-up for the Vigilance Department to provide vigilance clearance”.
In respect of the departments, where it is not possible for 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 PSC said.
Following the recommendation in the previous Annual Report of the Commission only few departments have nominated officers for liaison with the Commission’s Secretariat in order to sort out hurdles in deciding old pending cases and furnishing fresh proposals complete in all respect, the latest report said, adding “majority of the departments have not submitted action taken report till date in this regard”.
Follow our WhatsApp channel