MT News Service
Jammu, March 30:
A large number of aspirants of Fire and Emergency Services assembled outside Maharaja Hari Singh Park and continoue their protest on 9th consecoutive day, Today Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) State Spokesperson J&K & Sangathan Mantri, Partap Singh Jamwal alogwith Mahesh Bakshi (President CYSS) join protest dharna of F&ES aspirants.
Partap Singh said that the said scam was started in the year 2013 when advertisement was notified for 870 posts out of which 696 posts were of Firemen and Firemen drivers, including 598 posts of Firemen and 98 of drivers.
He said that approximately 60,000 aspirants applied against the posts after which Physical Standard Test was held followed by written examination by recruitment board of F&ES Department and than 14000 aspirants were shortlisted but interview for final selection could not be conducted in 2014 because of flood tragedy in Jammu and Kashmir. In 2017, than CM took cognizance of a report of Director General F&ES and cancelled the recruitment after which many candidates approached the court, which directed the Government to hold the recruitment process afresh.
In a statement issued to mercury times, Partap said adding that the then BJP-PDP Government ordered to hold this recruitment under TRP (Transparent Recruitment Process) and a Hyderabad based company namely Timing Technologies India Pvt Limited was hired for the same.
In 2018, physical test of shortlisted 14000 candidates was conducted and 7000 candidates passed the test and then appeared in written examination, which was conducted for the second time in 2018. The candidates again leveled serious allegations of mass copying, unfair means and irregularities but Government took no action following which the aggrieved candidates again approached the court, which directed the Government to frame an inquiry panel. The inquiry panel, headed by then Principal Secretary Home, J&K, Shaleen Kabra observed that large scale irregularities, mass copying and unfair mean practices had taken place and submitted a report to the Government following which the examination conducted for the second time was cancelled again and recruitment firm hired was blacklisted.
In 2020, Government hired another agency LMES and before conduct of examination on September 20, 2020, paper was allegedly leaked a day earlier and sold openly in the market for lakhs of rupees. The selection list was issued on 3rd of October, 2020 and the appointments were made within three days to hush up the matter and close the recruitment at the earliest. The appointments were made without any police verification.
On his address, Mahesh Bakshi said that the concerned authorities have formed three-member panel headed by Additional Chief Secretary Home R K Goyal Committee in this regard which was to give its report within a month by January 12, 2023 but the report is nowhere even after more than two months.
He demanding that the JK administration make public the report of the inquiry committee formed to probe alleged irregularities in the recruitment process. Aap urged upon the concerned authorities to come out with a final decision on the issue so that their wait may come to an end.
Other who were present Sushant Abrol, Vijay Deol, Ashwani Kumar, Sushant Mehra, Sam Palgotra, Ashish Mehra, Kapil Dev, Luv Sharma, Abhinav Choudhary and others.
