Hasty replacement

Though the raids by the sleuths of State Vigilance Organisation (SVO) at the Chairman J&K Bank Office at the bank’s corporate headquarters in Srinagar within hours after sacking of Parvez Ahmad speaks volumes about the irregularities surfacing in the bank but the replacement of Parvez Ahmad by an in house officer in haste amid charges of recruitment bunglings against the bank management contradicts the very purpose of removing Parvez Ahmad from the top position. Apparently it seems that governor’s administration has removed Parvez Ahmad on allegations of irregularities in bank recruitments but it owes an explanation to the people for placing another in house officer at the top position in the bank without staying the process of recruitment for probationary officers. Since the new Chairman was also part of the team which designed the recruitment process under the leadership of Parvez Ahmad, the government’s decision of handing over the charge of the bank to the associate of the outgoing chairman comes into question. If at all we assume that the new chairman was not associated with the process of recruitments of the bank even then the recruitment test for the probationary officers should have been stayed to ensure that new chairman gets some time to redesign the recruitment test for the post of probationary officers scheduled to be held shortly now. Even if the governor’s administration has taken cognizance of the backdoor appointments ordered at the whims and wishes of the previous PDP-BJP coalition government then government should have sacked the outgoing Chairman Parvez Ahmad last year when bank’s recruitment process was questioned by none else than the Governor Satya Pal Malil himself .
As far as the replacement of the bank chairman is concerned, the governor’s administration instead of placing an in house officer at the command should have assigned the charge of the bank to Principal Secretary Finance till a search committee would recommend a suitable person for appointment as bank chairman as erstwhile Farooq Abdullah government way back in 1996 too had assigned the charge of the bank chairman to the then Financial Commissioner (Finance) Mohammad Shafi Pandit till the search committee cleared the name of Mohammad Yousuf Khan for the top position. Hasty replacement of the bank chairman by another in house officer without staying the recruitment test of probationary officers does not assure a change in the conduct of the recruitment test and henceforth transparency in the recruitments.