THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: On August 8, the Kerala Administrative tribunal had once again directed the revenue department to create supernumerary posts to appoint three ‘persons with disabilities’ from the PSC rank to the post of deputy collector within a month. It has been over a month since the deadline has been crossed and yet no action has been taken. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, but has taken note. The Chief Minister's office has forwarded the complaint of one of the aspirants, Mr Madhu, to the revenue additional chief secretary for “taking appropriate action”.
“The revenue depar-tment has not yet reported three deputy collector vacancies to the PSC for advice,” Mr Madhu stated in his missive to the Chief Minister. He also informed the Chief Minister that the finance department had also approved the appointment of three disabled candidates as deputy collectors in three of the six new revenue divisions plan-ned. In fact, the KAT had wanted the creation of three supernumerary posts because the revenue department had obfuscated the fact that the finance department had already approved six posts to the department. The proposal recommending the creation of six posts is now pending with the Chief Minister.
Though the file had reached the CM’s Office on September 23, Mr Pinarayi Vijayan has kept the file aside seeking more clarification on the creation of six posts from the revenue department. An official order sanctioning the six new posts will be issued only after the Chief Minister, and then the Cabinet, too, approves the proposal. The order then has to be sent to the Public Service Commission so that it could vet the candidates on the rank list and issue advice memos.
The KAT, in its August 8 order, had held that vacancies should be informed to the PSC to advice physically disabled candidates from the rank list that came out on January 17, 2014. Early this year on January 19, the KAT had directed the Social Justice principal secretary to issue an order revising the reservation roster followed by the PSC for physically handicapped candidates while issuing advise memos for government jobs. The state PSC has been following the rotation pattern of 33:66:99 despite repeated court orders that the pattern 1:34:64 should be followed. If the 1:34:64 pattern is followed, the first advice memo should go to the highest ranked handicapped person in the rank list when vacancies are reported in a department, unlike in the existing scenario where the highest ranked handicapped candidate gets a call only for the 33rd vacancy.
