Afraid of former Congress General Secretary Digvijay Singh, the State Government on Tuesday deferred the proposal of merger of 70 employees’ services in the State Government, brought to the State Cabinet.
This is not the first time that the proposal of employees’ services’ merger was brought before the State Cabinet. In the past, the proposal was accorded nod, but this is for the first time that the proposal of merger of 70 employees was not passed.
Notably, recently, a case of irregularities in the appointment through State assembly had come to fore. In the case, these employees were later merged in the State Government and after different committees found this illegal, an FIR was recently registered against 19 people, including former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh and former Speaker Srinivas Tiwari.
On Tuesday, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told the ministers and officials to first investigate whether these employees were recruited through State Assembly and there is no irregularity in their appointments. He said, “While, we are registering FIR in the cases of similar nature, we should not encourage it.”
Accepting the stand of the Chief Minister, Panchayat Minister Gopal Bhargava stated that it was better to investigate, because all the appointments were made during Congress tenure, when employees were appointed quite easily.
Factually, Chief Secretary Anthony DeSa had recommended merger of these employees, stating that all of these 70 employees are regular employees and they were recruited properly. However, the Cabinet turned down the proposal deciding to first get it investigated.