TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Former minister for Animal Husbandry & Veterinary Services Ravi Naik and other officials have been named in an FIR, for their alleged involvement in a recruitment scam, registered by Anti-Corruption Branch.
The FIR states that 39 vacancies were created and illegally filled prior to the 2012 assembly election.
Former AHVS Director Siddhivinayak Naik, Deputy Directors Ernest D’Costa and Irene Sequeira, head clerk Janu Gaude and nine candidates have also been booked for their alleged involvement in the allegedly irregular and manipulated selection process. The then director was the Chairman of the Departmental Selection Committee for recruitment. The FIR under section 120-B IPC for criminal conspiracy and sections 13(1) (d) (ii) read with 13(2) of Prevention of Corruption Act 1988 was registered against them on Wednesday after a preliminary inquiry into a complaint last year established gross irregularities in the entire selection process.
According to the complaint, the Department had proposed to fill 12 posts of Field Assistants and 27 posts of Attendant Dressers in 2011 following which several candidates had applied and were subsequently issued call letters to appear for interview. After short-listing the candidates, the Department issued appointment orders to the selected candidates who were allowed to join service, despite the code of conduct being imposed on December 24, 2011.
“Some of the irregularities revealed that the Screening Committee failed to verify the documents produced by the applicants in support of their candidature for the posts. The list of candidates finalized for appointment had severe deficiencies and were not tallying with the residential address of these candidates, as compared with the residential certificates issued by the Mamlatdar, that were enclosed with their applications. There were also gross violations of model code of conduct in force by the Election Commission of India as well as many other irregularities noticed from the selection process involving the Departmental Selection Committee,” a press statement issued by the ACB reads.
The inquiry also apparently showed that Siddhivinayak Naik was appointed as the director on September 20, 2010 though he was technically not qualified for the position nor had the then government followed recruitment rules for his appointment.
“The sole purpose of appointing such an officer was to act upon the dictates of those who desired to meet their personal requirements… it is clear that merit has been a casualty and lack of transparency in the process of selection of candidates under reference; this recruitment was a scam which was conducted with undue haste, arbitrary allotment of marks, undue favour to the candidates and selection of a majority from a particular Taluka indicate of some malaise in the system,” the release mentions. The recruitment process was nonetheless cancelled in September 2013 and an FIR was directed to be filed by the government.
Reacting to the complaint against him, Ravi Naik told Herald that the compliant is politically motivated. “I have not received a copy of the FIR… The recruitment was not a scam… It is a politically motivated move against me,” he said.
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on the other hand claimed it a complete scam. “The recruitment was a complete fraud committed by the department officials under instructions of the minister. It is a clear case of irregularities committed by the then minister,” he said on the sidelines of BJP’s ‘chai pe charcha’ campaign for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
