UP civil service jobs face clean-up heat
The state public service commission chief during the Samajwadi Party-led government has been accused of favouring applicants from a particular community, writes Virendra Singh Rawat
The state public service commission chief during the Samajwadi Party-led government has been accused of favouring applicants from a particular community, writes Virendra Singh Rawat
Last month, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced a CBI investigation into allegations of rigging in the appointments made by the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Service Commission (UPPSC) since 2012.
The chief minister took to the floor of the State Legislative Assembly during the recently concluded Budget session to make the announcement. He said the allegations of widespread wrongdoing in the recruitment process of the UPPSC have hurt the credibility of the state service commission, and the only way to clear things up was to hold an impartial inquiry by the premier investigating agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Since 2012, few appointments in the state’s provincial services have been without controversy. The person in the thick of the quagmire is Anil Yadav, who was the UPPSC chairman from 2013 to 2015. Yadav has been accused of politicising the recruitment process during the tenure of the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government in the state to favour applicants from one community — the Yadavs.
One estimate puts the number of allegedly falsified appointments at 3,000 during Yadav’s tenure. However, some say, as many as 20,000 appointments, including those in the judicial and medical services, could be investigated by the CBI. For now, the state government has put all controversial appointments made in the past on hold. Simmering for long Discontent among the applicants started to brew in 2015 when the Akhilesh government was in power. In March, violent protests erupted in Allahabad, and spread to other cities, after question papers for the UPPSC examination were leaked on messaging service WhatsApp barely a few hours before the tests were to start. Angry students set ablaze government transport vehicles and demanded the removal of the state service commission chairman, while the opposition picked up the issue to target the Akhilesh government.
The episode brought enough embarrassment for the Akhilesh government; the paper leak not only pointed to irregularities in recruitment, but also undermined confidence in the government.
Later in July 2015, a motley group of unsuccessful UPPSC aspirants approached the Allahabad High Court seeking revaluation of their answer sheets. The applicants claimed more than 50 per cent of the candidates selected as sub-divisional magistrates in the preceding three examinations held by the UPPSC were from the Yadav community.
In their public interest litigation (PIL) filed before the Allahabad High Court in 2015, the petitioners claimed of the 86 sub-divisional magistrates selected in the previous three exams during Yadav’s tenure, 56 belonged to one community. In other appointments, too, they said, over 50 per cent of the selected candidates were from the same caste. The petitioners also urged the high court to remove Yadav as the UPPSC chairman and institute a CBI investigation into the matter.
According to the PIL, 72 of the 389 provincial civil services officers selected in 2011 were Yadavs. Of them, 45 candidates were in the list for the other backward castes and 27 belonged to the general category.
Yadav had taken over as UPPSC chairman in April 2013, and three provincial civil services examinations — for 2011, 2012 and 2013— were conducted during his tenure, when the alleged discrepancies are said to have crept in.
The petitioners said the UPPSC examination process was mired in discrepancies and smacked of a well-connected racket involving highly-placed people; beyond the vested interest of appointing candidates from a particular caste, money had also exchanged hands, they alleged.
It was also alleged