Srinagar: Nearly a month after Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s announcement, the government on Monday formally accorded sanction to the constitution of a High Level Inquiry Committee to enquire into the selections of the J&K Khadi Village and Industries Board (KVIB) which saw among others appointment of son Sartaj Madni, maternal uncle of Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and PDP’s vice-president as an executive officer of the board.
On February 25, Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti had announced that the high-level probe would be headed by “Chief Secretary”.
The three member panel is headed R K Goyal, principal secretary home department and comprises Dr Pawal Kotwal, Principal secretary government H&ME Department and Farooq Ahmad Shah, secretary school education department, as members.
The High Level Inquiry Committee has been tasked to enquire into the complaints relating to the alleged unfair selection made by the J&K Khadi and Village Industries Board against various posts; determine as to whether proper procedure as laid down in the relevant rules have been followed, as has been done by the other recruiting agencies or not; enquire into the methodology in selecting the agency(ies) for setting the question, evaluation process etc.; and ascertain whether any deviation has been made in the selection process from advertising the posts to the release of selection lists.
“The committee shall be serviced by the Industries & Commerce Department and shall submit its final report within one month,” reads a government order issued here.
Pertinently, Mehbooba had announced probe days after the ruling PDP come under a barrage of criticism over the appointment of the son of its vice-president (Sartaj Madini) as an executive officer in the KVIB.
Syed Aroot Madni, the son of PDP’s Vice president, featured in the selection list of the Board, while the nephew of PDP general secretary and KVIB vice-chairman Peerzada Mansoor Hussain has been placed in the waiting list for the post of assistant executive officer.
The PDP has termed the selection as fair, and Sartaj Madni himself has questioned whether or not the sons of politicians deserved a chance to seek employment and livelihood.
But the opposition National Conference has hit out at the PDP describing the selection as “institutionalization of corruption,” while netizens termed the appointment as “fraudulent” and sought an explanation from the ruling coalition partner.
Amid severe castigation on social networking sites, top bureaucrat Shah Faesal said that the case warranted a police case if allegations of malpractices in the selection process were true.
“If it’s true that the merit list has been rigged,” Faesal, who is the managing director of the J and K Power Development Corporation, wrote on facebook, “then instead of an inquiry there should be an FIR. High time that we take those people to task who push our educated youngsters to the wall and kill their confidence.”
According to his Facebook profile, Aroot is the youth president of the PDP for the Divsar assembly constituency from where his father had lost elections in 2014.
The National Conference lashed out at the Chief Minister, saying the PDP’s “tall rhetoric has fallen flat on its face and this selection list is another proof of PDP’s insidious and nepotistic style of politics”.
“Most of the people figuring in the list are either children of close associates of PDP leaders or have direct patronage from the powers that be. The chief minister is directly culpable for this open loot and plunder she has authorised in the state. The state institutions have been ravaged by the PDP and corruption has been institutionalized by the chief minister and her family members,” Junaid Azim Mattu, the National Conference’s state spokesperson, said.
He demanded an immediate probe into the entire selection process. “Is this why the state government has placed its leaders as VCs of these boards so that they could adjust their children in these institutions? What is the message you are sending out to our youth?” he asked.
