Election Commission stops result announcement of ongoing recruitment process in Haryana till poll process over

New Delhi, August 21

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To ensure a level-playing field in the Haryana assembly polls, the Election Commission of India (ECI) on Wednesday barred authorities in the state not to announce the results of ongoing recruitment processes of police constables and teachers till the election is over.

The assembly elections in Haryana will be held in a single phase on October 1 and results will be declared on October 4.

The ECI’s model code instructions do not bar the continuing regular recruitment process or promotion through UPSC, SPSC, SSC or any other statutory authority.  But state that “recruitments through non-statutory bodies will require prior clearance of the commission”.

After ascertaining the facts from the state government and in view of the existing Model Code of Conduct (MCC) instructions, the commission found no violation of the code in the ongoing recruitment processes by the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) and Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC).

The commission has found that the recruitment processes were initiated before the announcement of the election on August 16 and is within the existing MCC instructions as stated above, where statutory authorities can continue their work.

However, in order to maintain level playing field and to ensure that no undue advantage is accrued to anyone, ECI has directed that announcement of results of these recruitments by the authorities concerned (HSSC and HPSC) will not be released till completion of the assembly poll in the state.

The commission took cognisance of a complaint from Congress leader Jairam Ramesh regarding violation of MCC in the process of recruitment against 5,600 vacancies for the post of constable in the Haryana Police, 76 posts of two categories of teachers by HSSC and recruitment for various posts by HPSC.

In its response to Ramesh, ECI said based on his complaint, it sought a detailed report from the state government and found that 600 posts of female constables (general duty) and 4,000 posts of male constables (general duty) were uploaded on the HSSC portal by the DGP Haryana on July 3 and 1,000 posts of male constable (India Reserve Battalion) were requisitioned on the HSSC portal on July 9.

The advertisement regarding 5,600 posts of police constable and 76 posts of two category of teachers (TGT and PTI) were published on the website of the HSSC at 1.45 pm on August 16, the day ECI announced polls.

“The recruitment relates to regular appointments and there was no separate announcement in this regard and only advertisement was issued on August 16 at 1.45 pm on the HSSC website for the posts already referred to HSSC by the sponsoring authority — DGP Haryana,” it said.