Panel for posting of IA MD on regular basis

NEW DELHI, APRIL 25. A parliamentary committee today asked the Government to initiate ``fresh action'' to fill all posts where appointments have been made bypassing the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB), including appointment of Mr. Anil Baijal as chairman and managing director of Indian Airlines.

Taking strong exception to the appointment of the Civil Aviation Joint Secretary as the Indian Airlines CMD, the committee on public undertakings recommended that immediate action should be taken to scrap the provision for bypassing PESB procedure so that all recruitments to top level posts in public undertakings are done on an equal footing by only one agency.

The committee's second report, which was placed in both houses of Parliament today, said it expected a ``positive action'' in this regard within three months.

The committee, headed by the BJP MP, Mr. V.K. Malhotra, asked the Government to initiate fresh action to fill up all such posts, through the PESB on a regular basis, treating the earlier appointments as ad-hoc.

The report said it found the Government's reply that PESB was bypassed only under special and rare circumstances like the poor health of PSEs very ``vague and incomplete.''

``The committee feel that once a set of systems and procedures has been established to fill up top level positions, there should be no stipulation made alongwith it to enable the bypassing of the system which would really make the whole legally established system redundant,'' the report said. The committee said rule of law would be restored in the matter of appointments to top level posts in PSEs only when this kind of unreasonable stipulation were scrapped from procedures.

The report said it was all the more necessary to select a person through PESB, when the selection related to a sick company as it needed a very ``competent'' person to revive it.

Stating that the Government had not given any indication on the period for which such appointments have been made, the committee said ``even if the appointments are made for a very brief period as a stop-gap arrangement, it is not at all justified to ride rough shod over the established rules in this fashion.''

- PTI

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Section  : National
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