The Punjab Government on Sunday issued directives against de-reserving posts of reserved categories without getting prior approval from the State’s Welfare Department’s reservation cell.
The communique dispatched to all Heads of Departments, Divisional Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, Registrar of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, all Sessions Judges and Sub-Divisional Magistrates clarified that the filling of vacant posts of reserved categories from other categories without approval would lead to strict disciplinary action.
The letter confirmed that if the posts reserved for SCs, BCs were lying vacant due to non-availability of qualified SC, BC category candidates, the posts could not be de-reserved without getting prior approval from the Reservation Cell.“Impartial and proper implementation of the reservation policy is the constitutional responsibility of all departments and erring officers would have to face action if they failed to do this,” said the state Welfare Minister Gulzar Singh Ranike.
The Government’s spokesperson said that in case there was non-availability of eligible candidates from reserved categories, “the department concerned will send a detailed dossiers of proposed conversion of posts explaining that why these posts cannot be filled from the reserved categories”.
Spokesperson said that the department would also have to explain the efforts done for filling these posts from the reserved categories. He said that it has been observed that some departments were violating the reservation laws and taking decisions in this regard at their own level without getting permission from the Reservation Cell.
He said that the state government has taken a serious note in this regard as it affects the interests of Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes. There were provisions to initiate strict actions against erring officers or employees, who were not implementing Reservation Policy in true spirit, he added.He clarified that no ex-post facto sanction or approval would be given to any department after filling of post without obtaining mandatory approval from the authorities concerned and strict action would be initiated in such cases.