Srinagar: The controversy over the appointment of the first cousin of Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti in the Khadi Village and Industries Board (KVIB) refuses to die down.
A letter by state law secretary Abdul Majid Bhat, who was also controller of the KVIB recruitment exam, to IGP CID has surfaced which hints that the exam process may have been rigged.
CNN-News18 is in possession of a letter written by Bhat which claims there were some unfair means reported during the conduct of exams.
This comes at a time when the KVIB selection process has come under scrutiny after the appointment of Mufti's cousin. The appointment of 37-year-old Syed Aroot Madni, son of Mufti’s maternal uncle Sartaj Madni, as an executive officer has prompted dropped candidates to file an RTI seeking their marks in the written test and interview.
One candidate had even written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of his interview expressing fears of nepotism and malpractice.
Aroot, whose father is vice-president of the Peoples Democratic Party, did not comment.
Peer Mansoor, vice chairman, KVIB, a close aide of CM Mufti and senior PDP functionary, told CNN-News18 that proper recruitment norms were followed in the selection.
''This is the fairest selection in the history of KVIB. We are nowhere in the picture. We outsourced the conduct of exams to a private reputed agency and they handed over the final list,'' he said.
Aroot's selection, however, is being questioned by candidates who have alleged rules were flouted to accommodate him.
The candidates alleged that the selection of candidates for various posts was handed over to a private recruitment agency instead of the Jammu and Kashmir Services Selection and Recruitment Board (JKSSRB) or Jammu and Kashmir Public Services Commission (JKPSC) which conducts all such exams for non-gazetted posts.
They also said 15 to 18 candidates were shortlisted for interview to fill in a single post against a set norm of 3:1 or 5:1. Calling so many candidates for interview was done to manipulate selection, they alleged.
Further, they alleged 30 marks were kept for the interview and only 60 for the written test. The JKSSRB and JKPSC generally keeps 80 and 20 marks for written and interviews for filling up government vacancies. The remaining 10 marks earmarked for ‘work experience’.
Mansoor says KVIB follows its own recruitment rules. Farooq Peer, former JKSSRB boss, wrote on Facebook that it would have been proper had the KVIB referred the vacancies to JKPSC or JKSSRB since they are credible bodies for recruitments.
“Since jobs are scarce and a large number of aspirants had applied for KVIB, the PSC or SSRB would have handled the process in a transparent manner,” he said.
The KVIB had advertised various posts, including that of executive officer, on October 8, 2016. The shortlisted candidates appeared in the written test in August 2017 and the interviews were held in the last week of January.
Rashid Qadri, secretary KVIB, told CNN-News18 that his department had no role in the selection.
“The industries minister who is also chairman of KVIB had appointed the law secretary as the Controller Examination. He later outsourced the conduct of examination to a private recruiting agency,” he said.
Comments
0 comment