Vitiated Recruitments

By all accounts, the selection process for 945 posts under the Panchayat and Rural Development department was compromised from the very beginning. Over 1.5 lakh candidates sat for the written exam in May last year amidst widespread chaos. At several centres, the exam started hours late, photostat copies of question papers were distributed, smartphones were widely used by examinees and the question paper reportedly circulated on WhatsApp. Responding to a PIL, Gauhati High Court ordered that the results should not be declared pending investigations. While the CID inquiry is learnt to have uncovered irregularities in 9 districts, the State government has contended that the exam was compromised only in Rangia district. When the results were finally declared on March 8 this year, more protests erupted with the KMSS, AASU and other student and civil society groups alleging brazen irregularities. The biggest surprise is the number of selected candidates who are said to be relatives of ministers and BJP/RSS leaders, or known to be close to them. In a State where bogus certificates and degrees have been routinely furnished to land plum government jobs, the authority saw it fit to allow candidates to join P&RD service by simply uploading their documents online. This in turn raises suspicions that the appointment process was hastened to beat the EC announcement of poll dates. P&RD minister Naba Kumar Doley asserts that the recruitment has been done on ‘merit’ while Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has ordered another inquiry, this time by the State additional chief secretary. Ironically, the Congress — which utterly vitiated the State public recruitment process through massive bribery and nepotism during its long rule — is now having a field day denouncing the scam in P&RD recruitment. Chief Minister Sonowal with his professed ‘zero tolerance’ to graft has kept up a campaign against corrupt officials and promised cleanup of the recruitment process. But in the first substantial public recruitment under his watch, his government has stumbled badly. Meanwhile, questions are also being asked about the latest recruitments in the Information & Public Relations department (which is directly under the CM), the appointments for which was completed within a day of the final written phase in the 4-phase exam. After the APSC cash-for-jobs fiasco, the State government may have thought roping in an agency from outside would be an improvement — a company based in South India bagged the P&RD exam contract and is learnt to have sub-contracted the work to a Guwahati-based group. But the outcome appears the same as the scam-ridden ones of Congress era. We may well ask whether the State machinery has become totally incapable of inducting recruits through a clean, transparent process. When agencies from outside make a hash of the job, it only opens the door to the powerful to again push through their candidates. As for the APSC scam, the special court has granted additional 3 months to wrap up investigations, after considering a plea by investigating officers requesting the extension in view of law & order and election duties. While the recent transfers of top police officials Surjit Singh Panesar and Subhasish Baruah did cause concern as to how the investigation will fare henceforth, these have been somewhat allayed by the announcement that they will continue to lead the investigation in their new postings. But they still have to wrap up all the evidence and present an airtight case in court against Rakesh Paul and his well-connected former government appointees.