Jammu, Feb 8: The Kashmir Administrative Service officers posted in Social Welfare Department were contemplating to go on mass leave in protest against, what they termed, as unjustified and illegal service benefit to some blue-eyed officers.
 Sources in the department revealed that resentment was growing among the KAS officers serving in the department against the move of the senior authorities to promote some “blue eyed candidates by flouting merit and rules”.
 They alleged that the department was clandestinely promoting scores of ineligible Incharge officers Assistant Child Development Project Officers (ACDPOs) with retrospective effect in an apparent violation of departmental recruitment rules.
 The DPC for retrospective confirmation of these officers, a majority of whom are ACDPOs, was conducted last week wherein it has been decided to give retrospective affect of confirmation to most such officers completely in violation of the rules.
 “The move will not only mar career prospects of Direct Recruits (CSS officers) of the department but will also invite unnecessary litigations as well,” said an aggrieved officer.
 He said the department had submitted various proposals to PSC for granting retrospective confirmation to the various incharge officers (1999, 2005), but as the proposals were based on a certain Executive Order (No SW 143 of 1997, dated 16-06-1997), the Public Service Commission had rejected such proposals and directed the department to draft Recruitment Rules for the ACDPOs as they were not eligible to be promoted as CDPOs.
 The PSC directions were issued as prior to SRO 328 (11 Sept 2007) there were no rules to promote an ACDPO as only Tehsil Social Welfare Officers (TSWOS) and Superintendent Homes were eligible for promotion to gazetted cadre under Social Welfare Gazetted Service Recruitment Rules 1970, since the post of ACDPO belongs to a project and usually which cant be the feeding cadre for KAS services.
 The department, they said, got the recruitment rules modified in the form of SRO 328 in September 2007 which made the ACDPOs eligible for promotion as CDPOs subject to the successful qualification of Departmental Examination.
  “Thereafter the conformation proposal of Incharge ACDPOs was again submitted by SWD in 2008 in PSC for their retrospective confirmation on the basis of  SRO328 and the famous supreme court Ruling of Suraj Prakash Vs state,” sources said.
 They said that the department again pleaded for retrospective confirmation in their favour from the dates when no recruitment rules were existed.
 As per SRO328, sources said, the departmental promotees shall have to pass a Departmental Exam prior to their promotion into the gazetted cadre. “But by apparently exempting the Incharge ACDPOs from such exam the department has not only violating the prescribed rules but also showered its undue favors upon the promotees”.
 There are only 22 sanctioned posts of ACDPOs against which an equal number of officers have been promoted and inducted directly, which means the quota of ACDPOs has been exhausted. “Now wherefrom the department is trying to create vacancies for the retrospectively conformed officers (ACDPOs) leaves a question mark on the functioning of the department,” said an officer.
 He said that the seniority of Combined service officers of 2001, 2004 has already been fixed vide order no.SWB/GAZ/13/2003 Dt.34-10-2008 but for unknown reasons the same has not been published in any newspaper.
  “It appears that some vested interests have misguided the top level officers including Secretary SWD and even mislead PSC by manipulating facts which has resulted in the illegal, unjustified confirmation of the undeserving and ineligible officers” they said adding, “The officer recruited directly to the department shall have no other option but to go on mass leave.” Rathore stabbed by NID student outside court
Chandigarh, Feb 8: Former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore, convicted in the Ruchika molestation case, was today attacked and injured when a student of the prestigious NID posing as a journalist stabbed him thrice in the face with a pocket knife outside a local court.
 The condition of 68-year-old Rathore, who had gone to the court in the morning in connection with hearing of his appeal against the six-month sentence imposed on him, was stated to be stable.
 The shaken former top cop came back to the court with a walking stick for post-lunch proceedings with bandage on his right cheek amid tight security. The assailant is said to have a psychological problem suffering from "mood disorder syndrome".
 The assailant identified as 29-year-old Utsav Sharma, a resident of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh and pursuing a post-graduate diploma course in animation and film design at the National Institute of Design(NID) in Ahmedabad, has been arrested by the police and was being grilled.
 As Rathore stepped out of the district court complex after the morning proceedings and was barely 15 feet away from his waiting car, the assailant who was standing among mediapersons waiting for an interaction lunged forward, caught him by the neck and in a split second stabbed him thrice on his right cheek with a sharp-edged pocket knife.
 Rathore was also punched on his face by the youth who posed as a freelance journalist. The assailant had a still camera with him and pretended to take pictures of the approaching former cop.
 A bleeding Rathore covered the wound on his face with a handkerchief while an escorting policeman pinned the youth down to the ground just near the ex-cop's car when he tried to run in the midst of a commotion. The assailant also attempted to attack Rathore on the arm.
 "He appears to be pyschologically imbalanced. We are trying to ascertain the motive behind his action," Chandigarh's SSP S S Srivastava told PTI. Srivastava said Utsav came from a good family background. Both his mother and father are professors, he said.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 8 Feb 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 8 Feb 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 9 Feb 2010 00:00:00 IST