Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Apr 9: In what could be termed as sheer discrimination and grave injustice, majority of the State Government departments have been depriving their employees of the benefit of promotions during the past several years as the repeated instructions from the ARI and Trainings Department and Public Service Commission on finalization and updation of Recruitment Rules have fallen on deaf ears.
In order to ensure timely promotion of Gazetted and Non-Gazetted employees of all the Government departments, the ARI and Trainings Department devised Model Recruitment Rules in the year 2005 and circulated the same to all the departments for ensuring uniformity of standards in the Recruitment Rules of various services and to overcome the ambiguities in the earlier Rules.
All the Administrative Departments were required to revise the Recruitment Rules of all the services in the light of Model Recruitment Rules and submit the proposals to ARI and Trainings Department.
Even the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission, in its Annual Reports for the years 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 pointed towards these aspects and emphasized upon updation of the Recruitment Rules.
The Public Service Commission, in its latest report, has mentioned that majority of promotion cases remain pending for want of Recruitment Rules. It has further mentioned that Recruitment Rules of most of the departments are obsolete and do not meet the changing requirements.
“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 has underlined, adding “one of the causes of litigation could also be attributed to faulty Recruitment Rules”. It has again recommended massive review of the Recruitment Rules for necessary amendments.
However, the instructions of the ARI and Trainings Department and recommendations of the PSC have fallen on deaf ears in majority of the departments as a result of which huge number of employees are remaining deprived of promotion to the higher posts. Moreover, due to non-serious approach towards the repeated instructions large number of created posts could not be filled up.
As per the Model Recruitment Rules, the departments are required to examine the strength and composition of cadre after due intervals and take necessary cadre reviews.
According to the official sources, only few departments have updated the Recruitment Rules while as majority of the departments have not done so. Moreover, many departments do not even have the Recruitment Rules. “In this way, these departments are not fair to their own employees and continue to deprive them of their legitimate rights”, they added.
“The non-preparation/updation of Recruitment Rules is not only denying promotion benefits to employees but in many cases, it becomes impossible to fill up the posts in view of non-availability of eligible officers/officials, due to prescription of length of service, resulting in stagnation at various levels and also avoidable litigations”, sources said.
It has also been noticed that the departments even submit incomplete proposals by way of not providing the orders of creations, comprehensive notes/comparative statements etc as a consequence of which it becomes impossible for the ARI and Trainings Department to place the cases before the Standing Committee constituted by the Government.
Taking serious note of non-compliance of repeated instructions on the Recruitment Rules, Secretary, General Administration Department, M A Bukhari, on the directions of the Chief Secretary, Mohammad Iqbal Khandey, has once again enjoined upon all the Administrative Departments to conduct a comprehensive review of the Recruitment Rules of all the services under their administrative control and propose amendments to address the issues arising out of stagnation, absence of appropriate hierarchial pyramids at various levels, litigations, creations from time to time and creation of new posts for which method of recruitment is not prescribed.
They have also been directed that the observations made by the Public Service Commission in the Annual Reports of previous years be also considered while formulating the revised draft rules/proposing amendments. “While forwarding the proposals to the ARI and Training Departments, the documents like notification along with Schedule I and II, existing Recruitment Rules, if any, comparative statement, self contained note and creation orders should be attached”, reads the directives issued by the GAD Secretary.
It has been decided that ARI and Trainings Department will conduct department-wise review of the Recruitment Rules.
“Though the Secretary GAD has issued fresh directions in view of non-compliance to the earlier instructions yet a mechanism should be set-up to take action against those officers, who are required to ensure adherence to the directions”, sources stressed, adding “such officers should not be allowed to play with the future of huge number of employees as denying promotion benefits amounts to grave injustice”.
“Moreover, a time-frame should be fixed for all the Administrative Departments for updation/preparation of the Recruitment Rules so that there is no further delay in providing justice to huge number of employees”, sources further stressed.
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