A year after the audit committee detected 2274 illegal and fake appointments in the Health and Medical Education Department, the Jammu and Kashmir Government on Saturday appointment a five-member-panel to probe these fraud recruitments.
On February 4, 2022, the Jammu and Kashmir government's audit committee had detected 2,274 illegal appointments made in the health department in the year 2020.
Taking serious note of these fake appointments, the authorities on Saturday set up a committee to probe illegal appointments in Health and Medical Education department, Jammu and Kashmir, as per the Audit and Inspection department.
Quoting official sources, a news agency reported that the probe panel will be headed by the Director Finance Health and Medical Education with four others as members.
"Sanction is hereby accorded to the constitution of the committee to monitor the exercise of identifying and revisiting the illegal appointments in the Health Department as reported by the Audit and Inspection Department and all other illegal appointments," reads the order.
Committee to take a decision to permanently settle this issue
The committee has been directed to take a policy decision once and for all to settle the issue by applying a common yardstick to 2274 employees.
It will also decide against the officers and officials, who were involved in the illegal appointments.
Director Finance H&ME will be its chairman, while the Additional Secretary to the Government H&ME (HRM), Additional Secretary of Department (Law) H&ME, Under Secretary to the Government H&ME (HRM), and section officer, H&ME (HRM) will be its members. The committee has been asked to submit its report within 30 days.
Thousands of illegal appointments detected in Health Department in 2022
The Audit Committee had detected 2,274 illegal appointments made in the health department. More such appointments have been reported from the Bandipora, Budgam, and Ganderbal districts of Kashmir Valley.
However, these illegal and fake appointments were detected over a decade back by the audit and some of them were established by then State Vigilance Organization (SVO) later Health Department committees formed to look into them found only 133 as illegal and those employees were immediately removed but they moved to the High Court.
In this regard, the Deputy Director, Directorate of Health Services, Kashmir (DHSK) had written a letter to the Medical Superintendent of JLNM Hospital, Srinagar as well as the Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) of Srinagar, Ganderbal, Budgam, Baramulla, Kulgam, Shopian, Pulwama, Kupwara, Bandipora, and Anantnag.
Fake appointments were made between 2000 to 2006
These 2274 fake and illegal appointments were first detected by audit and then SVO also established some of these appointments as fake and illegal.
These appointments as per the documents were made between 2000-2006 and in 2008 then State Vigilance Organization (SVO) established some of these appointments as fake and illegal.
The Health Department also formed various committees and they finally established 133 such appointments as fake and illegal and the rest were found genuine. These 133 employees were removed but they approached the High Court and the matter is presently sub-judice.
