DENTAL SURGEONS LIST
Srinagar, Jan 2: It seems the Public Service Commission has made relation one of the basic criteria for recruitments. That is what the Dental Surgeons’ selection list recently issued by the state’s premier recruitment agency would suggest. 
 According to a group of candidates, the list is a “big fraud” as a sizeable number of selectees turned out to be the “close relatives” of some former bureaucrats, including the members of the body, and an incumbent minister.
 Some candidates in the selection list include relatives of a former bureaucrat, whose “close relative” worked with him as a lower-rung employee. “Three of the employee’s relatives are from the same area where he resides,” they alleged. 
 Likewise, half a dozen relatives of another bureaucrat figure in the list. The relatives include his son, niece and nephew. The selection has violated the well established norms, they alleged.
 Worse, the candidates questioned the selection of eight relatives of an incumbent minister. The ‘beneficiaries’ include his niece, an adopted daughter, brother-in-law’s daughter, nephew-in-law and the son-in-law of the minister’s brother-in-law.
 The candidates have been selected against the notification No 02-PSC of 2008 dated 18-02-2008 wherein the Commission had invited applications for the 320 posts of Dental Surgeons, with 183 and 137 in the Open Merit and reserved categories respectively.
 One of the selected candidates happens to be a close relative of an MLA from north Kashmir. Another one is the son of a senior PDP leader. There is also the daughter of a former bureaucrat who has held a senior position in the administration until recently. Another candidate is the daughter of a senior official. Likewise, there are several relatives of some former and present ministers and bureaucrats.
 Pleading anonymity, the aggrieved candidates said the PSC skipped the screening test in violation of rules and held the interview directly “obviously to favour the blue-eyed candidates.”
 “Some candidates selected are not recognized by the Jammu and Kashmir State Dental Council and had their degrees from some unrecognized colleges outside the state. Their registration certificates are fake,” they alleged. “There is a candidate in the list who didn’t appear in the interview and because of that a member of the Commission did not sign the final selection list.”
 Some “over-aged” candidates have also allegedly figured in the list.
 The candidates questioned the PSC move of issuing an incomplete list in the Open Merit category, without any footnotes. “After we found this list, we heard a PSC official saying that the result of 87 seats is pending or withheld because many of them did not fulfil the eligibility criteria. But how were they allowed to sit in the interview if the PSC call letter itself says that a candidate who fails to submit all the required documents before the interview, shall not be allowed to appear in it,” they said, adding, “The entire selection process smacks of fraud which needs to be investigated.”
 Interestingly, the candidates said, the PSC cancelled some appointments made in the list, a day after it was issued. “The PSC cited that the candidates didn’t fulfil the eligibility criterion. How did they conduct the interview if this was the case?” the aggrieved candidates asked.
 Irked by the list, the candidates have moved the Vigilance Office and the Chief Minister’s secretariat. A copy of the representation is with Greater Kashmir. “We request the Chief Minister to get the list re-examined as it amounts to massacring merit. Some highly meritorious candidates have been dropped. The PSC has ruined their careers,” they said. They are likely to move the court as well.
 Despite repeated attempts, the PSC authorities could not be contacted.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 2 Jan 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 2 Jan 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 3 Jan 2010 00:00:00 IST