- Q The initial order defies the conventional procedure of Appointment.
Q Age, qualification and recruitment rules forgot in toto.
jj correspondent
Jammu, Feb 25: Fraudsters are everywhere in different shades, colours and clowns in the society and are treated as per law. But, allegedly, Skill Development is sluggish in dealing with the lot. Many cases of illegal appointments, backdoor entries, service record discrepancy, illegal in-situ promotions, violation of rules, misuse of official positions, improper use of state exchequer, frauds in local funds, change of cadres, paying salaries to idle workers, attachments of staff to their choicest places of posting, stay of employees over decades at one working place, premature transfer of the blue eyed were brought to the notice of the Director of the department through print media many a times but nothing concrete was seen done to deter the flow of corruption.
A worker, Muzaffar Ahmad Shah, is shown appointed vide order No. 6. Dated 6-8-79 by Superintendent ( DDO ) of an ITI In 1979, as WorkShop Attendent, a class IV employee, against a newly created post. The order copy is a big question mark to the office procedures: Firstly, Superintendent (DDO ) of an ITI is not authorised to make an appointment of class IV worker. Instead the Director of the Technical Education Department was authorised on that date.
Even then if under any circumstances, a Superintendent is compelled to give any relaxation to any destitute or even a blue eyed (for discussion sake), the appointment letter should be at least customary– according to the customs or usual practices associated with a particular society, place or set of circumstances. Here the order copy is issued by the Superintendent of the Industrial Training Institute, without any reference of approval from Director or even Deputy Director and its copy should had necessarily been sent to Deputy Director as provincial head and to Director for release of additional funds for the payment of salary to the new incumbent.
Instead the copy is here forwarded to the head clerk of the institute where the worker is posted and to the appointee only. Then how did the DDO pay the salary for the years the appointee was posted there? Where from he managed the money when the newly appointed was not baptized in the department? Secondly the recruitment rules viz. SRO 235, dated 17 th April, 1979, governing the department at that time, was completely violated because it says that a Workshop Attendant, appointed through Direct Quota or Promotion Quota should be a Middle pass with National Trade Certificate or National Apprenticeship Certificate in any trade. Here the appointment order is itself a witness that the appointee is not with any of these ( Technical ) ITI certificates at all though he is academically Matriculate. Thirdly when the date of retirement is compared with the date of appointment, the appointee had been under age – below 18 years at the time of appointment. So the text of the appointment letter rivets one’s mind to the idea that it is not created in an office, signs may be forged. So it is a fake one – unacceptable and unsustainable under law and hints at some fraud, rather a scandal.
Now the question to be answered by the department is that if the appointee ‘served ‘ the department for 42 plus years and worked on different posts from Workshop Attendant to Junior Instructor to Senior Instructor to supervisor to Technical Assistant to Superintendant ( Gazetted ), vide Govt. Order No. 69-JK(DSD) of 2023, Dated, 08-06-23 and Incharge Principal, holding the additional charge of other four ITIs simultaneously, was there none among the departmental Promotion Committees, Deputy Directors, auditors, DDOs at different ITIs, highly trust worthy and authoritative Accounts Section at the Directorate and different empowered officers and Committees meant for sending the incumbent to higher training courses, the pension sanctioning authority at the time of superannuation retirement and finally the DPC at Administrative Department ( Skill Development ) level to confirm him on gazetted cadre, over 42 years, without coloured glasses of favouritism who could have seen with naked eyes that without ( genuine ) appointment order the man cannot be treated as a legally hired employee. Thirdly, was Quasi Permanent order issued in favour of the incumbent after checking and verifying such an appointment order? In addition to all this, date of issuance of the appointment order is the same viz.8-6-79 as the date of first promotion to the post of Junior Instructor as per the final seniority list issued vide No. DTE/Estt-5/101/51/6823-45 Dated 8-08-2007. So, which one can be taken as what, needs a immediate clarification from the Directorate of Skill Development Department for justice sake.
Further, this question begs an answer that who is responsible for the deceit done to genuine aspirants of different posts occupied by the illusory employee from time to time? What silhouette of ‘fairness in dealing matters’ will be in the minds of those affected as such? Salary paid to such an employee is misuse of fiduciary powers of DDO and direct injustice done to the genuine and un-influential eligible one. A complete probe is demanded in the matter.
