DIMAPUR, AUGUST 25 (MExN): The ACAUT Nagaland today stated that the Nagaland State Government’s latest Office Memorandum (OM) dated August 11, 2016, allowing the departments to regularize employees appointed prior to the OM banning contract appointments, dated June 6, 2016, is “discriminatory and nothing short of treachery toward the people and vile contempt of court order.”
The ACAUT in a press note stated that the latest OM resolutely “violates Atouzo Vs state of Nagaland judgment banning regularization by the Cabinet, thus, making amply clear that the State Government has no respect for the judiciary and merit-based selection.”
It said that the 6/6/16 OM banning “backdoor appointments” overrides the OM 2008 which had allowed the Cabinet to “regularize backdoor appointments;” and this 6/6/16 OM was the “basis on which the Hon’ble HC had banned all backdoor appointments in the state, henceforth.”
The latest OM “not only violated the Hon’ble HC judgment as passed on 5th August 2016, but is an unprecedented backstabbing of the judiciary,” the ACAUT said.
“This will most certainly create further social disparity between the haves and have nots and feelings of marginalization bordering on tribalism,” it added. The ACAUT said that if the Cabinet had respected the HC judgment “tens of thousands of contract posts would have lapsed and these freed up posts could have been filled up by a selection process based on merit, including conduct of exams by the NPSC as per the fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution…” “Very importantly, the Eastern tribes could have availed this job opportunity by way of 25% Reservation on all the freed posts which the backdoor system had prevented. The latest OM makes a mockery of the reservation quota, for the glaring truth is that there is no backward quota in backdoor appointments,” it added.
Despite the 25% Reservation quota being in place since 1977, ACAUT lamented that Eastern tribes comprise less than 10% of the total state government employees whereas their actual number should be more than 35,000, that is, 25%, out of the total 140,000 employees. “It’s time that the illusion of 25% Reservation disappears but the 11/8/16 OM will continue to perpetuate this deception at the cost of the Eastern tribes,” it added.
While acknowledging “the humanitarian aspect of the backdoor issue, such as, the uncertain fate of the overaged employees on contract,” ACAUT however said that “this utter mess is the sole creation of the State Government.” “It is for the Government to rectify it, if necessary, whereby an arrangement for age relaxation may be considered for over-aged contract employees to appear for NPSC examination on those lapsed posts requisitioned to the body for conduct of examination. This process is as per the strict interpretation of the 5th August HC Judgment,” it added.
Terming the latest government OM on this issue as “an act of mischief by the Cabinet,” the ACAUT stated that the “Chief Secretary should not speak with forked tongue since he has already given an undertaking to the Court that the 6/6/16 OM will be implemented in letter and in spirit. The ACAUT cannot allow such a mischievous executive order to go unchallenged.”
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