Specially abled job aspirants allege PSC, HED dissolving their reservation quota

Bivek Mathur

JAMMU, Mar 12: Highly qualified specially abled job aspirants have written a letter to Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha while asking the latter to protect their job quota allegedly being dissolved by the Higher Education Department and Public Service Commission (PSC) while making recruitments.
One of the aggrieved job aspirants, Showkat Ahmad Hajan, said the Disability Act of 2016 and different SROs issued by the Social Welfare Department have mandated it for the recruitment agencies to provide 4% horizontal reservation to persons with benchmark disabilities in job recruitments.
He said in case, in any recruitment year, the recruitment boards or agencies don’t find a suitable candidate under “differently abled category” to fill up the 4% vacancies, they (recruitment boards and agencies) have to maintain a roaster so that such posts are filled up by virtue of future advertisement notifications.
He further said that the Disabilities Act and the SROs also provide that the share of specially abled candidates’ reservation cannot be utilized in favour of other categories at all.
“But, to our misfortune, the authorities at Higher Education Department and PSC did not follow these rules properly despite our repeated requests,” alleged Showkat Ahmad Hajam.
Citing an example, Hajam, who has sought LG Manoj Sinha’s intervention to address the specially abled job aspirants’ issues, said that in 2021 PSC came up with a notification number 09-PSC (DR-P) of 2021 dated September 3, 2021 to fill up the posts of Assistant Professors in Government Degree Colleges of Higher Education Department in Jammu and Kashmir, wherein it (PSC) didn’t follow the carry forward rule.
“Not only this”, he said, “the PSC notification instead of reserving 4% reservation by a separate column as was the case in the notification of 2014, simply added a line to the notification that read, ‘horizontal reservation’.”
“However as per the notified rules, the horizontal reservation for candidates belonging to differently abled category shall be notified separately. But no clarification was issued on this error,” he said.
“To add insult to the injury”, Hajam said, “the PSC issued a short listing/rejection notice against the 2021 notification on September 16, 2022 in which it even ignored the “differently abled category” of the candidates altogether.”
Consequently, he said that he along with other candidates made a representation to the Chairman PSC who revealed that the basic roster was prepared by the Higher Education Department in consultation with the Social Welfare Department.
He said that later he also made a detailed representation to the then Principal Secretary, Higher Education Department, Rohit Kansal who promised to look into their issues.
“But, to our utter dismay on March 1, 2023, the Higher Education Department through PSC issued the 2021 notification afresh in which there was no mention of 4% horizontal reservation,” Hajam further said.
Later, he said that he highlighted the matter with senior-ups and accordingly, an addendum to the PSC notification was issued afresh on March 8, 2023 that provided 4% horizontal reservation to the physically challenged persons having benchmark disabilities as identified in the Government order number 59-JK (SWD) of 2021 dated April 15, 2021.
Bashir Ahmed Dar, Secretary, Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission (JKPSC), however, said that whatever the differently abled candidates have been alleging isn’t true.
He said, “we had notified the 4% horizontal for persons with benchmark disabilities in the earlier notification as well”.
Asked if the 4% horizontal reservation was notified earlier why an addendum to notification number 06PSC (DRP) of 2023 dated March 1, 2023, was issued on March 8, 2023? To this question, he replied with, “providing more information through addendum is done sometimes for more clarification”.
Dar didn’t reply to another question as to why the carry forward policy isn’t being implemented in letter and spirit while completing the recruitment process in the administrative departments.
Another job aspirant said on condition of anonymity that in case the carry forward policy of posts since 2016 and 2017 is not adhered to strictly the addendum issued on March 8, 2023 would be of no use to the deserving candidates as the level playing field wouldn’t be provided to them since number of posts advertised for different subjects are limited.
He appealed LG Manoj Sinha and other senior ups to look into the issues of the differently abled candidates on priority by ensuring them that the carry forward rule is implemented in letter and spirit.