With the Calcutta High Court throwing a barrage of uncomfortable questions to the State counsel on alleged irregular appointment of about 1.75 lakh Civic Police personnel another feather might just have added to the Mamata Banerjee Government’s exclusive crown of scams.
Apparently dismayed at the administrative irregularity with which the appointments were made to accommodate thousands of civic police men — handled by the Home Department — Justice Sanjeeb Banerjee on Wednesday said the way the appointments were made pointed at large-scale administrative fraud. The Chief Minister also looks after the Home Minister.
The Judge was listening to a petition filed for scrapping of the irregular appointments thus made. Upon scanning the files the Court found numerous cases where the interview process was rendered into a sham. What tended to bother the Judge was an instance of 875 interviews taken on a single day.
That was not the only example. Further scanning the files the Court found that at Sarenga Police Station area in Bankura district 1,351 interviews were taken on a single day. Similarly 900 applicants were interviewed on the same day at Barikul leading the Judge to comment that even if one candidate was interviewed for one minute the interviewers would take more than 22 hours to interview all — which would be a disproportionate proposition.
“At one point of time the Judge was so much astonished at the ‘capability’ of the interviewers who were given to judge the merit of the interviewees that he wondered whether their names could be referred for the vacant posts of judges so that huge backlog of law suits could be cleared in a moment” a senior advocate said.
Wondering as to why such appointments were not monitored when the State was paying Rs1 crore 6 lakhs of public money daily as salary to these civic volunteers the severely indicted the State Government. The State was paying about Rs350 crore a year to the civic volunteers.
Saying that the appointments appeared to have been made through a “fraudulent” process the Judge asked the State counsel to explain what measures they would take to rectify the process. The final verdict was to be passed on Friday.
Incidentally cases of large-scale bungling were earlier reported in the appointment of school teachers through Teachers’ Eligibility Test exams where about 18 lakh candidates were called for tests and only around 17,000 were taken. Anywhere between Rs5 and 10 lakhs changed hands in such appointments it was alleged in lawsuits that were subsequently filed.