PANJIM: Fearing contempt by the Supreme Court, the State government has appointed a candidate to the post of junior scale officer of Goa Civil Service (GCS) despite not possessing knowledge of Konkani, an essential qualification for a government post.
In November 2016, the government had asked the Goa Public Service Commission (GPSC) to fill 11 posts of junior scale officers of GCS. In the general category, four candidates were shortlisted for interviews and the GPSC recommended only one candidate Vivek Naik, who was later appointed as junior scale officer by an order dated November 2017.
The three candidates Pankaj Rane, Belwadi Nishat and Abhijit Nikam filed a writ petition before the High Court, seeking direction to the GPSC to recommend their names to the government on the basis of shortlisted list.
The High Court had held that the action of the GPSC not recommending the three names to the post of junior scale officers on the ground that they had not obtained 65 per cent minimum qualifying marks in the oral interview was illegal and beyond the powers of the Commission. The Court directed the GPSC to take steps as per Rule 12 of the Rules of 2016 on the basis of consolidated marks of the petitioners in the written examination and oral interview without attaching any qualifying criteria to the marks obtained by the candidates in the oral interview within two months.
In 2018 aggrieved by the order, the GPSC filed a special leave petition before the Supreme Court even as the government advertised and filled the vacancies in 2022. In April 2022, the Supreme Court dismissed GPSC’s appeal and directed it to forward the list as directed by the High Court to the State government within a month.
Accordingly the list was submitted to the government, who appointed Rane and Nishat as junior scale officers by an order in December 2022 and rejected Nikam as he did not possess the knowledge of Konkani, which was an essential qualification.
Again aggrieved by the government’s decision, Nikam filed a contempt petition before the Apex Court, who opined that the State government was in contempt since the appellant was appointed despite the order and declined to accept the government’s contention about one of the essential qualifications.
Considering the opinion given by the government counsel in Supreme Court to abide by the decision of the Supreme Court, the government finally issued offer of appointment to Nikam as junior scale officer of Goa Civil Service, a fortnight ago.