File defining Legislative Assembly recruitment rules ‘missing’ in GAD

LG Secretariat asks deptt to find ‘real culprit’ hell bent to dump revision of rules

By: Sameer Lone

Srinagar: The Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha led administration which has received accolades on the administrative front for some speedy processing of pending issues, has taken a strict note of the file that is gathering dust in the coffers of the General Administration Department.

According to sources privy to the development told the Precious Kashmir that the LG secretariat has asked for the fate of the file that was formulated and named as The Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly Secretariat (Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules 2019, aimed at to streamline the human resource management in J&K Assembly.

It has been learnt that the Principal Secretary of the General Administration Department has been told to find the “real culprit” hell bent to dump the revision of rules for this institution and fix responsibility for delaying the formulation of fresh recruitment rules.

In absence of a proper set of the rules, it has stalled the career progression of highly eligible officers as well as low rung officials, said a top official, saying some people in GAD and Law Department don’t want this file to go through for their unknown personal reasons.

“These revised set of rules were examined by Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs, ARI and Trainings and General Administration Departments threadbare and later Law Department vide No. U.O LD(SL) 2001/16 –Assembly Dated 28.3.2019 through the General Administration Department submitted these rules in coordination to the then Governor of J&K for accord of approval but surprisingly the said file was returned by General Administration Department to Law Department for some clarifications,” they said.

Sources added that the authorities of the Law Department resubmitted the file to the General Administration Department vide U.O.No. LD(SL)2001/18/Assembly Dated 21-10-2019 after providing the sought clarifications but the matter never culminated as GAD again returned the file to Law Department vide their U.O No. GDC-46/CM/2019 Dated 17-12-2019 and sought fresh clarification on four points inter alia directed the concerned Department to examine the proposal in terms of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act 2019 and resubmit it in accordance with S.O 01 of 2019 Dated 31st October 2019 read with Government Order No. 50-JK (GAD) of 2019 Dated 19.11.2019.

However, in July 2020, the Department of Law, Justice and PA’s vide Letter No. LD (SL) 2001/14 Dated 21.7.2020 sent back the file containing the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly Secretariat (Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules 2019 to the Assembly Secretariat.

It may be recalled that in 2011, the Law Department in its letter bearing No. LD (SL) 2001/16 Dated 20-4-2011 dashed to Assembly Secretariat on the subject acknowledged slackness in updating the Recruitment rules of Assembly and candidly mentioned that “Recruitment Rules of Legislative Assembly are under review from the year 2001 and their finalization has become inevitable”.

In the erstwhile State unwarranted delay in review or formulation of the fresh Recruitment Rules and Service Conditions of the employees of Assembly Secretariat was said to be a loophole beneficial to many and needs to be plugged through revision of recruitment rules.

Dr. Nirmal Singh, the last Speaker of erstwhile J&K Legislative Assembly had during his short tenure got the revision of rules completed and later updated version was forwarded by the J&K Assembly Secretariat to Law Department vide No. LA-857/Adm/2019 Dated 28-2-2019.

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