Women's reservation remained on paper after the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC), in a recent selection process, appointed male candidates to posts reserved for women.
The irregularity was brought to light by Aurangabad-based freelance journalist Arun Mundada after he gathered details of the appointments under the Right to Information Act.
The advertisement for the post of Town Planner in the Town Planning and Valuation Department, dated August 11, 2008, invited applications for 20 posts. Five of these were reserved for “ladies if available,” the advertisement stated.
Six women — Smita Nagare, Jayashreerani Surve, Dnyanjyoti Tikhe, Manjusha Asai, Manisha Bangal and Bharti Gavande — were among the candidates called for interview in December 2009, according to the RTI reply.
‘Not available'
The MPSC appointed one woman to a post reserved in the category of Other Backward Classes. For the remaining four reserved seats for women, including one in the category of Scheduled Caste, the Commission appointed Prahlad Hogepatil, Arvind Vagdurt, Dilip Ghevare and Ankush Sonkamble. The reason given — “Candidate was not available for the post.”
“How can they say candidates were not available when women were clearly called for the interview,” Mr. Mundada asked, alleging that this indicated corruption.
He told The Hindu that the criterion of experience was raised to five years from two years following a surge of applications. As a result, many women who would have been eligible for the interview got eliminated.
According to details furnished by the MPSC office in Mumbai, two of the six women called for interview were absent and the rest were “not recommended.” Their performance was below average, N. Patwardhan, Deputy Secretary, told The Hindu .
Ms. Patwardhan said that seats reserved for women cannot be carried forward. “Men can be appointed if suitable women candidates are not available. The same, however, does not apply for posts reserved in the SC category,” she said.
Conceding that the bar of requisite experience was raised owing to a large number of applications, Mr. Patwardhan said women were considered for the interview as per the old criterion. The MPSC said there was no application from a woman in the SC category.
