‘Men of integrity not henchmen of politicians should be choice’
By Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 15: Notwithstanding hectic lobbying by the henchmen of the politicians during the past nearly one year, the Government seems to be in no hurry to fill-up the vacant posts of the members of Public Service Commission and is still searching for the men of highest integrity so that impression goes to the public that Commission is no more meant for the rehabilitation of the blue-eyed bureaucrats.
The Commission, which was set-up as per the rules framed under Section 128 of the J&K Constitution, was actually having sanctioned strength of six (one Chairman and five members) but with the passage of time the strength of the Commission was increased to nine (one Chairman and eight members) in order to rehabilitate henchmen of the politicians.
Following the retirement of Dr Tara Singh, retired Principal of Government Dental College, Srinagar in December 2009 and Manzoor Bhat, B L Bharti and Dr H L Goswami in May 2011, the henchmen of some Ministers and politicians again started hectic lobbying for getting appointed to vacant four posts.
“Though names of several blue-eyed bureaucrats are making rounds in the political circles since May 2011 yet the Government seems to be treading very cautiously the path of making appointments to the Public Service Commission as consideration of henchmen of politicians and Ministers at the cost of men of integrity would dent the image of this autonomous body, which has improved up to certain extent during the past some years”, official sources said.
“The another reason behind Government going slow in making selections against the vacant four posts is considerable reduction in the work-load on the Commission due to clearance of huge back-log during the past two and half years”, sources further said while disclosing that keeping in view the clearance of back-log Chairman of the Commission, Dr S L Bhat, in a communication addressed to the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, last year, had suggested that Government may stick to the constitutionally sanctioned strength.
However, the Government is committed to fill up the vacant posts in order to provide adequate representation to the Jammu region in the Commission, which is responsible for making Gazetted level appointments, and a search for the men of highest integrity is still going on, they said, adding “as soon as the clean imaged and morally strong incumbents are found, the Government will fill up the vacant posts”.
In response to a question, they said, “only those persons should be the choice of the Government who would be of immense help in further improving the image of the Public Service Commission instead of down-grading the same as the image formation of the Commission is imperative for good governance”.
About the functioning of the PSC, sources said, “presently the Commission is on the road to reforms and transparency”, adding “after every quarter, a detailed bulletin is being released containing the details vis-à-vis latest position of posts lying with the Commission for appointment, number of interviews conducted in the preceding quarter, number of fresh posts referred for appointments and the number of appointments held up due to court cases”.
“The improvement in the functioning of the Commission can be gauged from the fact that for the first time in the history KAS examinations are being conducted regularly during the past three years”, they said, adding “in order to ensure transparency in the KAS selection, full Commission takes the interview. Similarly, for non-administrative posts, weightage is given to the evaluation of the experts in order to reduce the intervention of the members”.
Sources hoped that image formation of the PSC would be the priority of the Government instead of appeasing the Ministers and politicians, who are only bothered about rehabilitation of their henchmen, who have the track record of remaining at the beck and call of their political bosses.
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