Nagaland Voluntary Consumers’ Organization (NVCO) has urged the state government to strictly direct its various departments to requisite the vacant posts and the posts occupied through backdoor appointment, contract/casual/ad hoc/deputation/irregular/erroneous, etc to the Nagaland Public Service Commission (NPSC) for the conduct of open competition examination to ensure equal opportunity to all the eligible candidates in Nagaland through a press release.
The NVCO then stated that any appointment made without advertisement and without inviting applications from open market is backdoor appointment/irregular and amounts to infringement of Article 14 & 16 of Indian Constitution.
In this regard, the NVCO raised two questions: first, whether the state government has adhered to Article 14 & 16 of the Constitution of India in the process of public employment by issuing advertisement and inviting applications from all eligible candidates and has held a proper selection where all eligible candidates get a fair chance to compete. Second, whether NPSC has constituted a body of sufficient experts with fair and impartial members while holding the selection process through written examination and interview.
During the 1st General Conference of Combined Technical Association of Nagaland (CTAN) held at State Academy Hall, Kohima on 28th May 2022, NVCO President, Advocate Kezhokhoto Savi, Asst. Professor Kohima Law College talked about the importance of equality and added that Article 16 of Indian Constitution calls for equality of opportunity for all citizens in matters relating to employment or appointment to any office under the state.
CTAN is a combination of 10(ten) several technical associations of Nagaland such as (engineering)civil, electrical, mechanical, agri, forestry, horti, electronic & communication, computer science & IT, agri science, etc, which was formed in 2016 and has been fighting against backdoor appointments since 2016 by collecting detailed information through RTI by submitting several representations, ultimatum and so forth.
“It is very disheartening to learn from them that many of them didn’t get a chance to participate in open competition just the fact that the technical departments don’t requisite the vacant post to NPSC and so many posts especially Grade – II and below were occupied through backdoor appointment,” the NVCO press release said.
Savi also pointed out that public employment in Nagaland involves huge corruption such as:
i) abuse of power – using position or status to discriminate somebody or gain something from that person.
ii) nepotism – giving jobs to relatives and family members.
iii) favoritism – giving unfair opportunity to friends, awarding contract works or supplies in table tender to own choice of people.
iv) extortion – obtained by force, threats or unfair means.
v) bribery – taking money to give people jobs, profession, treatment, or dishonestly persuade someone for help through cash, selling government jobs, etc.
vi) embezzlement – stealing money or resources that is under one’s control.
vii) fraud – making false claims for benefits, etc. False medical re-imbursement or including expensive medicines, cheatingly drawing travelling allowances, leave travel concession (TA/LTC), General Provident Fund (GPF), leave encashment, pension, etc.
He further added that the fight is also against all those employed who have been appointed or recruited in various departments of the Govt. of Nagaland bypassing the Constitutional schemes of public employment through the modus operandi of illegal, backdoor, contractual, ad hoc, casual, temporary, deputation, irregular, etc, modes of appointment in collusion between the bureaucrats and the politicians.
“The Govt. of Nagaland O.M ,NO. AR-3/Gen-179/2007(Pt) dated 13th January 2010 on the subject – “irregular appointment of Govt. servants by some appointing authorities” reveals the naked truth about the most unethical ‘department ethics’ that has taken a stranglehold on governance in the State,” NVCO said.
While sharing its concern about equality in the society, NVCO concluded that reservation for backward tribes exists in Nagaland because of Article 16 however; the practice of ‘Backdoor appointment’ takes away the shares of reservation.