Orissa HC seeks clarity on outsourcing of police recruitment exams

Cuttack: Orissa high court has asked the state govt to clarify its stand regarding concerns surrounding the outsourcing of police recruitment exams, while hearing a PIL alleging irregularities in the process to fill up 862 posts of sub-inspectors, which is now under CBI investigation.

The court was informed that arrests have already been made and that “the entire recruitment exercise was entrusted to private company”. Making strong observations, the division bench of Chief Justice Harish Tandon and Justice M S Raman noted, “In the recent past, we felt that recruitment in public employment must ensure fairness, transparency, impartiality and equal opportunity by constricting any scam or leakage of the information.”

In its Dec 22 order, uploaded on Dec 30, the bench stated that the “Govt must take a conscious decision in conducting recruitment drive in any department so as to eradicate any sense of malpractice”.

The court directed the govt to file an affidavit by Jan 15 and granted petitioner Shivsankar Mohanty, an advocate, time till Jan 22 to file a rejoinder if any. The matter will be taken up for further hearing on Jan 27.

The PIL is based on the irregularity in the recruitment process for police sub-inspector posts. The controversy first surfaced on Sept 30, when a case was registered at Golanthara police station in Berhampur based on a tip-off and the Odisha Police sub-inspector recruitment exam, initially scheduled for Oct 5 and 6, was postponed by Odisha Police Recruitment Board.

Raising concern over outsourcing of the recruitment exam, the PIL pointed out that the police department has a dedicated recruitment cell with sufficient manpower, yet the recruitment process was handed over to a private agency. Such outsourcing of a sensitive process requiring “a high degree of secrecy” should be discouraged, the petitioner urged.

Appearing for the state authorities, additional govt advocate Saswat Das sought time to file govt’s response.