Srinagar, May 17: ‘Meritorious candidates’ in Higher Education Department have strongly resented on what it calls arbitrary deferment of their counseling by authorities concerned into their engagement on academic arrangement basis for the current session.
A delegation of the agitated candidates told Srinagar-based news agency Global News Service (GNS) that J&K Higher Education Department had advertised a notification under order No. 58- JK (HED) of 2021; Dated: 25-02-2021 for the engagement of Academic Arrangement candidates in Kashmir Division for session 2021.
The merit lists were accordingly framed and uploaded on the website of GCW M.A. Road after 15-04-2021 by the Nodal Principal (GCW M.A. Road) for all advertised subjects according to the Guidelines advertised by J&K Higher Education Department and a notification issued by the Nodal Principal on 07-05-2021 in which it was conveyed that the counseling for the engagement of Academic Arrangement candidates will be held from 08-05-2021 purely on merit basis as per the list displayed on the college website, they said.
However, the counseling of meritorious candidates has been arbitrarily deferred by the Nodal Principal concerned, they said adding that “We are in a fix as to understand why the counseling has been put off?”
Most of the candidates currently engaged in the colleges on the basis of court orders are ‘ineligible’, sans required qualification (PhD or NET degree), they said.
However ironically such candidates have been pressing the department to continue their services despite they themselves having submitted an affidavit duly signed before Ist Class Judicial Magistrate on the pledge that ‘I will never claim the continuity of service in the department’ at the time of submission of application/joining, they agitated delegation members underlined.
Charging the authorities of connivance, they said that the department has continued with the services of these candidates for two years now, giving a blatant go by to the merit.
“We demand the prestigious Universities across Jammu and Kashmir to come forward to support the cause of PhD, NET-JRF and Post Doctorate candidates for the larger interests of meritorious candidates to imbue a confidence in an otherwise shattered section of to be academicians”, they said.
Despite having common policies and common department of Higher Education for both divisions of the UT, the recruiting procedures are brazenly different with Kashmir violating the set norms every now and then, they alleged.
We the meritorious candidates have been sitting idle at homes for two years now despite with MPhil., PhD, SET/NET/JRF, and PDF degrees due to ‘abrupt changing policies of Higher Education’, they said adding that they could not be able to join the colleges because of the delay in the counseling and the attitude of the officials including Director Colleges, Nodal Principal, and other Higher Education officials.
Demanding the counseling purely on the basis of merit list already framed by the Nodal Principal be put into practice without any further delay, the agitated meritorious candidates further said that they be given an opportunity to serve the Higher Education Department effectively.
The candidates have in the meantime urged the authorities to make public as to why was the ‘counseling of meritorious candidates’ deferred. (GNS)
