Row over rehiring of retd MDU employees

Ravinder Saini

Rohtak, April 23

Rehiring the retired employees by the Maharshi Dayanand University has stirred a controversy with the MDU Non-Teaching Employees Association accusing the authorities of adopting a ‘pick-and-choose’ policy while making such appointments.

Practic not new

There’s a policy to rehire the retired staff as per requirement… This isn’t a new practice. It’s been followed earlier too so that work doesn’t suffer after the staff’s retirement. — Gulshan Taneja, MDU Registrar

The association has threatened to lock the main gate of the university and paralyse its functioning if the services of the rehired officials are not terminated by Wednesday.

“Some retired employees have been reappointed on the key posts in the university recently. Some of them have also either been made incharge or given vital posts of their branch concerned. The practice has not only blocked the way of new recruitments but also snatched the opportunity from those becoming incharge, who have got promotion on the post of superannuated employee,” said Sumer Ahlawat, president of the association. He alleged many retired employees had applied for the re-employment but only those having a political approach were rehired. Even retired officials of the state government were also rehired. “We will not let the MDU authorities continue with such practices. So, we are demanding the termination of services of such employees and not to follow this practice in future as well otherwise we will launch an agitation after Wednesday,” Ahlawat added.

Refuting the allegations, MDU Registrar Gulshan Taneja said: “keeping in view the requirement, the reappointment is made by the executive council (EC) of the university. First, the branch concerned recommends for the reappointment of any retired employee to the authorities, citing a necessity for it. Thereafter, the recommendation is placed before the EC, which takes a final call in this regard.”