The State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has issued notice to the University of Kerala based on complaints that the university was making appointments, primarily to temporary posts like that of data entry operator, flouting rules that stipulate that such appointments were to be made via the employment exchange.
The SHRC is likely to take up hearing on the case shortly, with a notice being issued in April, asking the Registrar of the university to submit a report on the issue. In the notice, Commission chairman J.B. Koshy pointed out that ‘backdoor appointments’ were not to be made when lakhs of jobseekers had registered with the State’s employment exchanges.
“The commission, on the face of it, does not feel that recruitments that make the employment exchanges appear like scarecrows is a justified practice, that too when there are existing directives even from the High Court that recruitments that are not via the regular employment procedure should be made through the employment exchange only,” Mr. Koshy said in the notice.
RTI reply
The issue came up after a petitioner, Harish M.S., brought it to the notice of the commission that the university, in reply to an RTI Act question on the mode of appointment to 576 assistant grade vacancies and 331 office assistant vacancies, had said that these vacancies would not be filled via the employment exchange.
The petitioner had pointed out the university, violating rules, had appointed ‘more than 600 persons as data entry operators on a temporary basis’. It was also alleged that more than 75 per cent of these operators were either close associates or relatives of the staff of the university.
Sources in the university also pointed out that many of the data entry operators were being deployed in confidential examination sections. They had demanded an investigation by the commission into these issues. Interestingly, the university was conducting walk-in interviews for data entry operators, with two rounds already over and the final one expected to be on Monday, the sources said.
Nepotism alleged in appointments
Walk-in interviews still under way in university
