The recent declaration by the Minister of Education and SCERT that his department will show no mercy to those employees having more than one government job is a matter that is quite relevant in Nagaland at present. The report was no doubt a bit confusing with the two leading newspapers initially attributing the matter to the case of substitute/proxy teachers. However there have been clarifications that the Minister in his speech was actually referring about the issue of persons with 2-3 government jobs.
It is a classic example of the talk on the street, “anything happens in Nagaland, Itu Nagaland ase (this is Nagaland)”. Every State is governed by a set of laws under its constitution assisted by the Judiciary and the law enforcing agencies and naturally law breakers in the society are dealt with as per the law. But neither a declaration nor a discussion is required to act on the present matter. Not only the department of School education but across the board the government has to continually find out those persons with more than one government job and prosecute them accordingly. It has to be an ongoing affair without any grace period to the defaulters. However, in a place like Nagaland that chose to overlook such blatant disregard of the laid down rules, a reminder is required for enforcement. The blame largely goes to the way the state was governed over the years but the minister has to be lauded for at least trying to do something. The Constitution of India through Article 16 ensures the equality of opportunity to employment or appointment for all citizens to any office under the State. The very act of having more than two jobs is discriminatory to the rights of other aspirants seeking employment under the government. It is also certain that the defaulters are committing fraud since he/she will be abstaining from attending duty in one of the jobs. In some case there may be proxies too who are attending office on their behalf. Even if the persons currently having more than one government jobs resign from one if detected they actually do not have any immunity before the law. The courts may show some leniency but it is still a criminal offence.
The sorry state of affairs in Nagaland is that the high prevalence of the people ignorant of the Law and the laid down rules and regulations is pulling the state down. There are also people who conveniently stay”ignorant “ saying that the Government of India has promised us Nagas everything. But both the cases should not have been the reason for non-enforcement. If law could be enforced in the Wild West then it should not be a problem in Nagaland too though there is a also traditional/customary system of law in force. The existence of the traditional systems should neither deter nor obstruct the enforcement but the case in Nagaland is observed to be the opposite. “Amakan sob Naga manu he ase” forms of compromise with advantage for the guilty party and at times shielded by people in power has to be stopped at least in enforcement within the government departments.
