APSC Chairman rubbishes APW’s allegation

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, March 7: Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) Chairman Brig. (retd) Ranjit Barthakur has rubbished the allegation leveled by APW that the Commission made an attempt to appoint a particular candidate as the Director of Agriculture.

The APW alleged yesterday that had not the Gauhati High Court intervened, the APSC would have appointed a particular candidate to the post of Director of Agriculture.

Barthakur said: “Since the case is sub judice we can’t say much. However, I just want to say that we don’t have any mala fide intention. We didn’t bring changes in the advertisement so as to help a particular candidate. We changed the advertisement as the government wanted so. I was not in this post when the advertisement had been published. Sometimes there are anomalies in government advertisements, and we suffer for that. We’re not the authorities to bring changes in any advertisement.”

The Chairman said that the Commission had a discussion with the Department on January 17, 2017 so as to know the educatiol qualifications, experiences, research works, equivalence in pay scales etc., as regard to Central Government/State Government employees.

“After a threadbare discussion with the government and taking all these into account, an ‘accept list’ and a “reject list’ were prepared and put up to the Commission on January 20, 2017 and the date for the interview was scheduled on January 27, 2017. Two candidates – Dhirendra th Kalita and Dr. Sunil Kr Pathak – were shortlisted for the interview,” Barthakur said.

On publication of ‘select and reject lists’, Dr. HK Dutta and Dr, Dipjyoti Rajkhowa, whose mes figured in the ‘reject list’, approached the Commission requesting it to call them for the interview. While Dr. Dipjyoti Rajkhowa stated that he had submitted required documents, Dr. HK Dutta cited an earlier instance and prayed that he should be allowed time to submit the requisite documents, the Chairman said, and added: “In order to remove any misgivings, the Commission, in an emergent meeting on January 25, 2017, felt that there is a need to re-examine once again all applications threadbare so as to ensure that none of the applicants with the requisite qualifications is left out. Though the earlier ‘select list’ was published after discussion with the officials of the Agriculture Department on January 17, 2017 as stated above, the Commission felt that there was still need for some clarifications, particularly ‘as regards to senior-level post’ as mentioned in the advertisement. Hence, it was decided by the Commission to postpone the interview to February 10, 2017 instead of January 27, 2017. Since re-examition of all documents would require time, the Commission further decided that it would be prudent to postpone the interview until further orders, and accordingly a notification was issued on January 30, 2017.”

Meanwhile, the Commission received an order from the Gauhati High Court on February 7, 2017 staying the proceedings, and accordingly it was notified, Barthakur said. “The Commission is complying with the orders of the Gauhati High Court,” he said.

Barthakur further said as many as 14 examitions that had been stalled after the APSC scams had rocked the State would now be held in phases.