Fraudulent appointments – This one crossed all limits

Jarnail Singh
‘In 2007, a person born in 1982, was appointed on work-charged basis by Manipur Electricity department on the ground that the same person was terminated by Electricity department in 1979 and that the Court / Tribunal had ordered the reappointment of work-charged persons who were terminated in 1979’.
Read this sentence carefully. This brings out fraudulent appointments as well as greed for money of a few influential persons. Their greed clouded their thinking as they overlooked a simple fact as to how a person born in 1982 could have been terminated by the Electricity department in 1979? I was Chief Secretary Manipur in 2007. As soon as I came to know of this, I undid it with the approval of the Chief Minister. I am narrating this case which involved 144 fraudulent appointments which I have mentioned in my book ‘My Tryst with Manipur’
The years 1974 to 1978 were not good for the Electricity department of Manipur. Even though annual fund allocations for the Electricity department used to be small, the department had appointed more than 2,000 work charged and casual workers without following any procedure and also without considering availability of funds for their wage bills. Because of the high wage bills of such a large workforce, most of the budget of the Electricity department was spent on making payments to workers thereby leaving little money for purchasing power equipment such as transformers, line materials and substation equipment as well as maintenance of existing electricity supply systems. Except Greater Imphal areas, in the whole of state, electricity was mostly supplied through isolated diesel engines. The state government was trying to develop 132 KV and 33 KV power grids and needed money for capital expenditure. Large work-charged staff became a drain on a small departmental budget and did not leave much money in the budget for capital expenditures. Keeping in view the requirements of funds for capital works, the government in 1979 terminated a large number of work- charged and casual workers who had been engaged improperly.
A group of terminated work-charged persons approached the Tribunal and after a long litigation got favourable orders for their re-appointment. In pursuance to the Tribunal and subsequent Court orders, the Electricity department started reappointing these persons. The department gave wide publicity till as late as 2005 and 2006, and asked the terminated work-charged persons to join back. In spite of that, 144 work-charged persons did not join. It seemed these 144 persons had either become too old or died by this time. In the year 2006-07, when none of the 144 terminated work-charged persons could be traced and reappointed, some crafty persons prepared a list of 144 persons at random and wanted these to be appointed as if these were the persons who were terminated in 1979.
During 2007, one day I got information that fraudulent appointments had been made in the Electricity department by taking advantage of an order of a Tribunal. Even though there was a ban on such appointments, 144 persons were appointed on work charged basis on the grounds that they were terminated from service in 1979. The proposal had the approval of the Minister and officials. I requisitioned the file. It seemed that some persons in the Electricity Department had planned a conspiracy and prepared this list of 144 persons for appointment. The Chief Engineer and Commissioner (Power) were threatened by a militant group with dire consequences, including chopping off their hands, if they did not process the proposal. On checking I found that none of the persons in the list of 144 was among those who were terminated in 1979. In fact one person in the list was born after 1982. A senior IAS officer told me that one of the persons in the list was the daughter of his friend whose marriage he had attended in 1982. The entire proposal was a fraud.
With the assistance of the then Advocate General, a legally vetted order for cancellation of these work-charged appointments was issued by me with the approval of the Chief Minister. I apprehended that the file containing this case could disappear as it had happened in the past in some sensitive cases, so I made three photocopies of this file and kept one copy in the Chief Secretary’s office.
The Chief Engineer and the Commissioner (Power) had got genuine threats to their lives. They both felt terribly sorry for being part of a patently fraudulent proposal. I understood the dangers to their lives, which many local senior officers who were not guarded properly, faced in day to day working in Manipur.
The writer is former Chief Secretary of Manipur and also served as the Administrator of Manipur University.