Fraudulent appointments

A bizarre case of fraud and deception has been unearthed by the Audit and Inspection team pertaining to the State Health Department. Details of the scam given in the columns of 29th January issue of this paper could be just the tip of the iceberg. It invites the attention of concerned authorities to widen the net of audit and inspection as there is apprehension that many serious irregularities might have taken place in making fraudulent appointments to Government services under either the pressure of militancy or nepotism or sheer corruption and bribery. The report speaks of nearly 2000 fraudulent appointments made in the Health Department in different districts in the valley with district Anantnag in the lead. It is not a case of simple illegal appointments. Many of the appointees have been found under aged. In some cases, appointment letters were issued on Sundays which is not the practice at all. On checking the dispatch register to examine when and how appointment letters were issued to the appointees, it has been found that deliberately wrong dispatch numbers have been given and these are non-existent. Fraudulent appointments have taken place in a number of districts though the number of appointees varies from district to district.
One wonders whether the administrative paraphernalia of the State and especially of Health Department has been hijacked by scamsters to the extent that for twenty long years such a big and blatant fraud remained unexposed. One fails to understand how come a medical officer of district level was authorized to make appointments when there are set rules and norms for making fresh appointments in any of the departments of the State administration. Secondly, why were not the vacancies advertised properly and applications called from people with requisite qualifications and experience as the normal procedure of fresh appointments. Obviously this has been a stupendous exercise in showing favours to the favourites at the cost of rights and interests of other candidates. That is blatantly illegal and criminal activity cognizable under law. Thirdly, why has there been distortion of rules like age bar and proper issuance of orders after enlistment in dispatch books. A number of cases of underage appointments have been revealed in the press and the medical department has not contradicted the reports that are now very much before the public.
The way this big scam has been kept under wraps for such a long time, and meticulously avoided from public domain, gives rise to many doubts about thousands of other appointments made in different departments of the state. If the administration took shelter behind the excuse of prevalence of extraordinary situation during last two decades, it has also to realize that injustice has been done to deserving and competent candidates. A state cannot run smoothly by circumventing the law and procedure because it does injustice to deserving persons. We are not at all contesting government’s right of making appointments. After all, the Government is the biggest employer in given circumstances in our State. Our contention is that deserving candidates should not get a rough deal. While helping one we cannot ride roughshod over the rights of others. And that is what the Health Department has precisely done. Looking in retrospect, we find that even earlier in the columns of this paper, such instances of fraudulent and illegal appointments were brought to the public notice. It is necessary that public interest is sensitized and people are made conscious of their rights and privileges.

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