Daily
Excelsior: Jammu: Wednesday, May 29, 2019.
Demanding
that the Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd be declared as a `public authority’ under
RTI Act, Bharatiya Janta Party today stressed that selections in the bank be
made on the basis of merit at the State level and not district wise.
“The
rules and regulations of the J&K Bank do not provide that selection is made
district wise. Otherwise also, the question of making district wise selection
does not arise as any employee can be posted in any branch of the Bank located
in any State of India,” said State BJP Spokesperson, Advocate Abhinav Sharma,
while addressing a press conference, here today.
Giving
more reasons why district wise selection cannot be made, he explained that the
advertisement did not provide that the selection would be district wise while
no district wise number of vacancies was shown. “The advertisement also did not
provide that the candidate belonging to a particular district can apply in his
home district only,” he added.
Pertinent
to mention that applications were recently invited by the Bank from the
permanent residents of J&K State for 250 posts of Probationary Officers.
The selection was to be in three phases. Preliminary examination, Mains
examination and Viva Voce. It was nowhere mentioned in the advertisement notice
that selection is to be made district wise, but when the result of the
preliminary examination was declared, the cut off merit of Kashmir Valley was
40 percent whereas it was 63 percent for Jammu.
Mr
Sharma alleged that it was in order to protect the interests of candidates from
Kashmir Valley that District wise selection was being made by bringing cut off
at 40 points.
Reminding
that the State Government is the majority shareholder in J&K Bank, which
has been earning huge profits because of the State patronage , the BJP
Spokesperson said that despite all this, the Bank has resisted every attempt of
its being brought under the Right to Information regime.
“Despite
the fact the it is the sole Bank, in which all the Government
officers/officials, departments, PSUs, Development Agencies are mandated to
keep their official funds and open their salary accounts whether they like it
or not, yet the bank is taking shelter under technicalities saying that it is a
private company and is not a `public authority’ under RTI Act and therefore not
obliged to provide information under RTI Act,” said Abhinav Sharma, who is also
president of Jammu Bar Association.