Meeting on promotion of Haryana Civil Service officers likely to be postponed

Tribune News Service

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Chandigarh, December 6

The Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) meeting of the Haryana Civil Service (HCS)-2002 batch officers for IAS is set to be postponed.

Recruitment under scanner

• The State Vigilance Bureau (SVB) registered a case regarding the recruitment of HCS officers and Assistant Professors in 2005 on charges of cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and under various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act
• The allegations pertained to selections having been made on “political and extraneous considerations”

The HCS recruitment process is under the scanner of the State Vigilance Bureau (SVB). The DPC meeting under Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) was slated for December 8. As the state government has told the UPSC to postpone the meeting, it is likely to be deferred.

There were seven posts to be filled, with three to be allotted to the 2020 batch and four to be allotted to the 2021 batch.

The State Vigilance Bureau (SVB) registered a case regarding the recruitment of HCS officers and Assistant Professors in 2005 on charges of cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and under various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act The allegations pertained to selections having been made on “political and extraneous considerations”.

Recently, the Vigilance Bureau had even sought prosecution sanction against the then Chairman of the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC), Dr KC Bangar, the Secretary of the commission, Hardeep Singh, and its members. However, the government has sought certain clarifications.

Former Congress Minister Karan Singh Dalal had challenged these recruitments in 2002 before the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The case is still pending. “If these HCS officers are being considered for IAS, I will write to the UPSC. After that, I will approach the high court,” he said.

These HCS recruitments were made during the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) regime.

Regarding the alleged illegal and arbitrary selections, the Supreme Court, in the Meher Singh Saini case in 2010, had observed, on perusal of the Vigilance Bureau’s inquiry reports, “… the marks of several candidates were either reduced or increased, without specifying any reason, much less as a genuine necessity. Where such changes have been made, there were no initials in some cases while in others, the initials were in different ink and even by different persons. The marks had been considerably varied and the persons who had got higher marks in the written examination were given very low marks in the interview and vice-versa. This obviously disturbed the inter se merit of the candidates.”

The apex court noted that the reports of the forensic experts with investigation agencies confirmed that “there are interpolations, manipulations and alterations in the answer sheets”.

The cases of two candidates who had got higher marks in the written exam were cited before the apex court. They were awarded lower marks in the interview and finally were declared unsuccessful, but later had cleared Civil Services. One became an IAS officer and the other was selected for IPS.

The disclosure of identity on answer sheets by depicting signs had also come to light.

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