Chandigarh, October 25
The Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) flouted its own rules and arbitrarily changed several procedures to recruit 312 medical officers in Punjab between 2008-09. This subversion of rules was done to ensure the entry of wards of the rich and powerful in the Punjab Civil Medical Service (PCMS) allegedly in exchange for money.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in November last year, in its final report submitted to the High Court, has established how the interview criteria were arbitrarily changed, a criterion of awarding marks for social service work was added without informing a majority of candidates (barring the wards of influential persons) and how even the resource persons/experts called by the PPSC were asked by commission members to “take care of a particular candidate”.

The beneficiaries of the alleged arbitrary selections in the PCMS include the son of a retired High Court judge who now heads a tax tribunal in Punjab, the son and daughter-in-law of a retired HC judge who is now a sitting MLA, besides kin of lower court judges, politicians and some serving as well as retired bureaucrats and police officers.

The report has also pointed out the collusion of PPSC member Satwant Singh Mohi in the arbitrary

recruitment process, after it found that he awarded 80-98 per cent marks to 27 candidates. The marks are not commensurate with their academic record.

Mohi also had telephonic contacts with these candidates or their “powerful” parents/relatives — a copy of these telephone records has also been submitted as part of the SIT findings.

Many of these telephone conversations took place on the day of the interview and the day when the final results were being compiled i.e. June 12, 2009.

Another 16 candidates who were interviewed by other board members were in touch with Mohi and a list of call details has been submitted by the SIT.

The probe has, however, not been able to establish a connection between the bank transactions of any candidate or their kin with the payment of bribe.

“But it has found a large number of cash deposits in the bank accounts of SS Mohi and his family members besides huge investment in various moveable and immoveable properties during the relevant period. He could not satisfactorily explain the pecuniary resources and property acquired during the period,” says the probe report.

It has also included the details of such cash deposits and investments in properties by Mohi. The SIT has recommended that a case of disproportionate assets be registered and investigated against Mohi.

The final report of the SIT, a copy of which is with The Tribune, has indicted all members of the Punjab Public Service Commission (at the time the scam was executed between 2008-09), including the then chairman, retired bureaucrat Sanjit Kumar Sinha (now deceased).

The other six members — Ravinder Kaur, DS Mahal, Brig DS Grewal (retd), Dr Satwant Singh Mohi, Anil Sarin and Ajaib Singh — have been found guilty on one account or other.

“Mahal, Sarin and Grewal awarded high marks to 24 candidates with an ulterior motive to ensure their selection,” says the report.

“Though a prima facie case under the Prevention of Corruption Act and relevant IPC sections stands made out against the PPSC members for their acts of omission and commission in connection with the selection, the absence of direct evidence of quid pro quo, makes its outcome, perhaps, uncertain,” it adds.

As many as 312 medical officers were interviewed and selected by the PPSC in two lots of 100 and 212 medical officers during 2008 and 2009.

The SIT report says the interview criteria was changed arbitrarily by a three-member sub-committee formed by the PPSC, which reduced the marks for academic qualification of candidates, increased the marks to be awarded for extracurricular activity. They increased the marks allocated for interview (from 30 to 40 marks), viva voce (from 40 to 50) and higher qualification (from 2 to 3), while introducing a new criterion for social work in medical field and reserving five marks for this.

By increasing the weightage of viva voce by 20 per cent, the weightage of marks allotted to the expert went down vis-à-vis PPSC members. It also deleted the five marks reserved for job experience, which is vital for any medical service, says the SIT report. It says the written/screening test for shortlisting candidates on basis of basic qualification marks was dispensed in violation of rules, thus ensuring that candidates with poor academic record could appear for the interview, which would not have been possible had a screening test been conducted. Of the 2,201 applications received for the first lot of 100 posts of medical officer, 1,774 candidates were called for the interview. For a post applicant ratio of 1:17, a strong case for a screening test is made out, reads the report.

For the second lot of 212 posts, 2,453 candidates applied and 1,450 candidates were interviewed. The SIT also observed that SK Sinha headed a single-member interview board, which meant that he enjoyed undue advantage of allotting 40 marks out of 50 for viva voce, with only 10 marks reserved for resource person.

Resource persons, too, were repeated for several interviews, and some of them gave statements to the SIT saying they were approached by PPSC members to “take care of some candidates” and thus gave them additional marks.