In 15 yrs, 800 recruited through ‘unfair’ selection: VC

Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 20

In a startling revelation, University of Jammu (JU) Vice Chancellor Prof Ramji Dass Sharma has said the selection of nearly 800 people “without a proper and fair selection procedure” by his predecessors has blocked the fresh recruitment of “meritorious manpower” for the next 25 years.

The VC has flagged the issue of “unfair” recruitments made on the campus in the past 12-15 years on a social media site in the wake of the ongoing strike of about 1,600 non-teaching and non-gazetted employees of the university.

The strike entered the 18th consecutive day today and has crippled the functioning of the university. The strike has put the varsity administration in a tight spot in view of ending of the financial year, crucial meetings of top bodies and with the JU convocation fixed on April 8.

Casting aspersions on the “unfair” selection procedure adopted by his predecessors, the VC has tried to give a clean chit to the selected people, saying “these 800 people are not responsible for such unfair recruitment.”

According to sources, a number of selections, including for the posts of assistant professors, were made “on considerations other than merit”. Besides, relatives and family members of university staff were accommodated on the campus “in utter violation of prescribed norms.”

“…..I feel extremely very sorry for such a situation but 10-15-year-old complicated issues take time to be resolved in the manner prescribed and not on pressures as we are a state-funded university being run on tax paid by the masses. We have already put in the process of regularising about 800 people selected in the JU about 12-15 years ago without a proper and fair selection procedure,” the VC said in his post on Facebook.

He said the regularisation of 800 persons selected through the “unfair procedure” was being done “just to meet a bigger social responsibility of saving the future of the children of those selected. This in fact debars the JU to recruit fresh hands on merit for the next 12-15 years as such excess unfair selection already done is being adjusted against posts falling vacant in days to come, thus virtually pushing the university about 25 years backward in terms of recruiting meritorious manpower.”

In the past 15 years, Prof Amitabh Mattoo, who is currently the Advisor to the Chief Minister, has served as the Vice Chancellor of the university from 2002 to 2008. He was succeeded by Prof Varun Sahni (from 2008 to 2012) and Prof Mohan Paul Singh Ishar (from 2012 to 2014).

“Though these 800 people are not, in anyway, responsible for such unfair recruitment as they might have understood that the way they were getting adjusted could have been perceived only the procedure prescribed in JU and that is why half of them have already been regularised and rest were in the regularisation process,” the VC said without expressing any intent of ordering a probe into the “excess unfair” selections.

The VC said the university could not afford to spoil the future of about 1,30,000 students in Jammu province just on account of the strike.