SHILLONG, AUG 1: Activists of the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) on Thursday staged a sit-in-demonstration in the Meghalaya Public Service Commission’s premises as a mark of protest against its failure to address the irregularities in the recruitment of MCS, MPS and statistical officers in the Animal Husbandry & Veterinary department.
This came after the 48-hour ultimatum served to the MPSC had expired.
Chairman of the KSU Employment Monitoring Cell Reuben Najiar announced that the Union outrightly rejected the justifications as he joined the other leaders and members of the union in tearing and burning the copies of the MPSC’s reply.
“We reject this reply of the MPSC. In fact, after going through the reply of the MPSC, we are convinced that there are irregularities in the job recruitment. Therefore, we will not allow the MPSC to treat the issue casually in an attempt to mislead the public. We will continue to stage this sit-in-demonstration till MPSC meets all our demands,” he said.
The delegation of the KSU also met the chairman of the MPSC on his invitation..
Speaking to reporters, Najiar said, “During our meeting with him (MPSC chairman), we have demanded the commission to immediately publish the marks of all the candidates appearing for the MCS (Prelims) Exam. In this regard, the MPSC has agreed to our demand and assured us that the marks will be published today evening.”
“We demand that there should be no kind of discrepancies or irregularities involved in the conduct of the MCS examination,” Najiar reiterated to the chairman, MPSC.
In regards to the MPS examination, the KSU leader said that the union has questioned the decision of the MPSC to deviate from the advertisement to follow the ratio of 1:2.5 while calling candidates to appear for the personal interview.
“They (Commission) have called very less number of candidates (around 27 of them) for the personal interview instead of not less than 42 or 43 as per ratio of 1:2.5. To this, the MPSC chairman has sought time as they need to consult the matter with their legal counsel before getting back to the union. However, we stressed that they should follow what has been advertised and not deviate from the normal process,” he said.
Najiar also informed, “With regards to the statistical officer posts, the union has questioned the decision of the Commission to declare the result for two people when the actual advertisement was for one post that too for only Khasi-Jaintia category. To that, the MPSC has claimed that they made a clerical error at that point of time and that from the department there was a requisition letter of two posts. They have shown us the letter and other corrigendum that was involved in it. However, we pointed out that such kind of clerical error should not be bound to happen. If such kind of clerical error is allowed, how will we believe you.”
Asserting the need to reform the MPSC, the KSU leader said, “If MPSC is what it is right now, such incidents will happen time and again.”
He informed that the union has decided to meet the state government in the coming days to submit its proposal to reform the MPSC.