Jaipur: After the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) rapped Rajasthan Skill and Livelihoods Development Corporation (RSLDC) for having met less than 2% job target in 2014-17 (during BJP rule), the Rajasthan High Court in its recent judgment slammed the corporation. The court said, “The manner, method, they have entered into contract for providing persons for working with them is clearly ‘arbitrary, illegal and unjustified and amounts to wastage of public funds for engaging persons by back-door method’.” The court said it “is amazed and shocked” to find such a modus operandi adopted by a state-controlled corporation”.
In the order, the Jaipur bench of the HC also noticed that RSLDC is not registered under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition Act) 1970 and therefore, the “method and the manner in which the appointments have been made by it is merely a camouflage to avoid making regular appointments.” It lashed out at the RSLDC stating that a government corporation cannot be allowed to act in a manner akin to a private organization. “Public exchequer and the public money is involved,” the court said.
“RSLDC is a corporation which provides livelihood for skilled development and therefore the posts are to be necessarily filled by way of selection on merits but the method and manner in which the appointments have been made by inviting tender is nothing but a ‘back-door entry’. “There is no procedure or allocation of merit in the selection by competition by the placement agency in providing staff to the respondents. Salary is being paid as if it is a dole money,” it stated.
“Public money has been put to waste and without any accountability by RSLDC,” the order further stated. “There is ample room for arbitrariness and pick and choose,” it added stating “such process of employment is contrary to the provisions of the Constitution or rules framed by state government.”
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“The administration and functioning of any state entity, if allowed to be handled by such employees, would result in causing administrative chaos and non-governance as they have no accountability,” it said.
The court order further said the following direction would govern the selection process. “The state government or its instrumentalities shall make appointments, on the posts created under various schemes sponsored by state or by the centre on contract basis or otherwise, only by conducting selection through open advertisement and after inviting applications and conducting written examinations and selecting persons on merit basis by a transparent method.”
It also said the chief secretary, Rajasthan government (D B Gupta) shall be responsible for getting the orders of the court implemented in three months. The order dated February 28, 2019 was in the view of the writ petitions (S.B. Civil Writs No. 8896/2016) against principal secretary, department of skill, entrepreneurship and employment; RSLDC and three private companies – Vision India Staffing Private Ltd, Accenture Solutions Pvt Ltd and Grant Thornton India LLP.
The court ordered, in these circumstances, the respondents (three private companies) will have no right or claim for continuing their employees with RSLDC.
It also asked the state to lay down procedure and create a recruiting agency for the selection process. “There shall be no interview method followed in order to avoid any room for arbitrariness or pick and choose method.” It further observed, “Sooner or later we may end up every appointment being made on contract basis and encourage situation where the people may start bidding for the posts in the state government or its instrumentalities which would result in nothing but encouragement of corruption. In the present case, the petitioners were appointed through back-door method by the respondents (private firms) and were working with RSLDC, which is an instrumentality of the state.”
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