Chandigarh, July 26
The way has been paved for the removal of all 4742 recruitments made by the Punjab Subordinate Services Selection Board (PSSSB) during SAD-BJP rule starting from 1997.
Top Vigilance Bureau sources said that except a few, all other recruitments had been made by the board either for some monetary consideration or on the basis of “sifarish” ignoring the merit and other laid-down procedures. The bureau, which has collected a lot of evidence in this case, is expected to submit a report in this connection to the Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, soon. The government has already decided that it would not retain any member of the tainted batches recruited either by the PPSC or by the board.
The board had made recruitment to 312 categories of employees. These included Naib Tehsildars, Assistant District Transport Officers, Labour Inspectors, Audit Inspectors, patwaris, clerks, health workers, assistants, typists and drivers etc.
A senior functionary of the Vigilance Bureau said the bureau had already arrested Mr K.S. Randhawa, Mr Munwar Masih, Mr Virsa Singh Valtoha and Mr Ashok Loomba, who were members of the board, abolished after the Congress came to power in the state. The bureau is looking for Tejinder Pal Singh Sidhu, ex-Chairman of the board, who is said to be abroad and Mr Parkash Singh Gardhiwala, a member who has absconded, besides the then Secretary of the board.
It may be mentioned that following the arrest of Mr Loomba, the BJP had raised a lot of hue and cry. But the bureau has found that he also used to recruit candidates on the basis of “sifarish”, ignoring merit. The bureau is considering to make all investigation made in this case public soon.
Mr A.P. Pande, ADGP and Director of the bureau, said the evidence collected so far had revealed that “merit was totally ignored” and the members concerned used to distribute posts among themselves. Suppose, there were 18 posts of a category. Each member of the board will have a quota of three posts in this case. Recruitment to only those posts was made on merit which were highly technical and the number of qualified candidates was not high against such posts.
The bureau says all members were involved in this scandal. It was trying to locate some more record required for investigation. The bureau has found that even in cases of “sifarish”, the candidate concerned used to give Rs 20,000 to 30,000 to the member concerned just as a “thanks-giving fee”. However, in certain cases money involved was in lakhs.
