Aspirants allege conspiracy to disqualify Jammu candidates
Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, June 9: In an alleged conspiracy to once again deprive Jammu aspirants from getting qualified for the post of Naib Tehsildar in the Revenue Department, J&K Services Selection Board has kept ‘Working knowledge of Urdu’ as mandatory in its advertisement for the post, issued today.
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As per the advertisement notification number 05 of 2025, dated, 09-06-2025 for the direct recruitment of Naib Tehsildar for 75 posts in Jammu and Kashmir, the syllabus will comprise two papers; one of Multiple Choice Objective Type Questions in English and the other of descriptive nature Urdu qualifying paper.
In Urdu paper, the candidates competing for Open Merit posts will be required to score at least 40 percent marks and candidates belonging to other categories are required to score at least 35 percent marks with at least 33 percent in each part i.e. Reading Section and Writing Section.
In Reading Section, the candidates would be required to answer questions carrying one mark each out of given passage while the Writing Section will comprise letter writing in minimum 100 words on a particular situation, one English passage to be translated into Urdu or vice-versa and one essay of about 100 words on any topic of social relevance.
Despite the fact that Urdu is not a compulsory subject at school level and majority of people in Jammu region prefer Hindi over Urdu as both of them, besides Dogri, Kashmiri and English, are official languages of J&K, the Working Knowledge Test has been allegedly introduced to reject candidates from Jammu region.
It may be recalled that a big number of meritorious aspirants from Jammu region for the post of Naib Tehsildar were also rejected last time by the J&K Services Selection Board for not qualifying Working Knowledge of Urdu Test, which was conducted for the first time in 2019.
Among the total number of 817 candidates, who were declared qualified for final interview on the basis of merit in the written examination for the post, 126 of them were rejected because they could not secure qualifying marks (40 percent) in the Urdu test.
Out of these 126 disqualified candidates, 122 were from Jammu region. Hence, around 15 percent meritorious candidates from Jammu region were rejected from final selection by declaring them disqualified without allowing them to appear in the interview.
The Services Selection Board had conducted this written examination of Working Knowledge of Urdu Test on May 12, 2019 for the posts of Naib Tehsildar, (Revenue Department), State Cadre, in pursuance of Advertisement number 01 of 2015 dated 07-04-2015. For the 155 number of posts of Naib Tehsildar, more than 75 thousand candidates across Jammu and Kashmir had applied and 817 of them were declared qualified for final interview on the basis of merit. This was for the first time that Working Knowledge of Urdu Test was introduced for the post of Naib Tehsildar.
As disqualification of meritorious Jammu candidates had invited sharp reaction from various organizations and individuals, the LG Administration had later announced that qualifying Urdu test would be no more compulsory for the post of Naib Tehsildar in future.
“However, the fresh advertisement of Services Selection Board has once again exposed ill intentions of those at the helm of affairs,” said aspirants from Jammu.
They have appealed Lt Governor Manoj Sinha to personally intervene for ensuring that meritorious candidates from Jammu region are not discriminated on the basis of Urdu, which is no more only official language of J&K.
They pointed out even FIRs in Police Stations and revenue documents are written in English and if required, selected candidates can be asked to learn the particular language for working knowledge as per the practice in the case of IAS or JKAS officers.
Pertinent to mention that similar attempts to keep Jammu candidates out from the selection of Naib Tehsildar were made in 2009 also when names of 29 candidates from Jammu were withheld after the release of final selection list on the pretext that they had not done their matriculation in Urdu subject even as there was no such eligibility criteria in the advertisement for the said post.
Though the matter was resolved later on after the intervention of then Revenue Minister Raman Bhalla, the delay in joining services by these candidates because of hurdles created by those at the helm of affairs, deprived these selectees from Old Pension Scheme and also made them junior from others in the total list of 110 selected as Naib Tehsildars. This was the reason that a number of these selected Naib Tehsildars from Jammu had later quit the job.
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