THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The recruitment of Sub Inspectors of Police (General Executive Branch), for which the PSC had initiated the process with the issuance of notification on September 28, 2007, continues to be a harrowing experience for the candidates owing to the dilly-dallying of the PSC.
Though the 263 ranked candidates have already completed their six months’ training at the State Police Academy in Thrissur, advice memos have not yet been issued to the 73 vacancies reported to the PSC. The Division Bench of the High Court had ordered the PSC to shuffle the rank list again after removing around 50 candidates who got into the list availing quota benefits twice after being included in a unified list.
In a related development, the Division Bench comprising Justice Antony Dominique and Justice Seshadri Naidu on a petition OP (KAT)200/2014 filed by Harish M C and Others, directed the government to report another 137 vacancies existing in the department.
Advice memos have been issued up to the 193th rank in the open quota. Since the recruitment process was initiated in 2007, many of the candidates, who had applied for the post on the verge of expiry of their age limit, are now in their mid-forties and left with very few years of service. Moreover, many of them have lost their physical fitness to undergo the rigorous training for one year. In case of induction into service, they may not get the deserving promotions.
“There are candidates aged above 45 years among those who have been included in the rank list under various quota. We will get very few years of service. The delay has already cost us the prospects of promotion and other benefits,” a candidate on condition of anonymity said. It is the PSC which has to be blamed for the hardships and mental stress being experienced by the candidates.
While there had been strict advisories against granting quota benefits more than once in a particular examination to a particular candidate, the PSC had shown disregard to the court verdicts in this regard.
It was under the PSC Chairman appointed by the previous LDF Government that the examination for the SI trainees was held. Malpractices such as copying during the exam using mobile phones and preparing a unified list against the established norms had paved way for litigations.
When contacted, PSC Chairman K S Radhakrishnan said that there was no basis in such conclusions.
“We have not yet received the copy of the verdict. We have to examine whether there was any scope to move the Supreme Court,” he said.
Referring to the media reports that Director General of Police was not interested in reporting more vacancies as he did not want to induct more candidates from the current list as many of them are aged, Radhakrishnan said that the PSC was acting as per statuettes and rules.
“The PSC will have to abide by the statuettes. As per the rules, if vacancies are reported during the period of a valid list, the candidates required for the post will be inducted from the list. Nobody can stop it. But on the question of not reporting the vacancies, the Department concerned was to explain,” he said.
About the delay in issuing advice memos for the reported vacancies, he said for the last four months there had been a court stay. “The Commission has to go through the court order. Despite the delay, ranked candidates for the reported vacancies would be filled in due course,” he said.