Nagaland police denies illegal recruitment

Dimapur, Feb. 29 (EMN): In the face of a demand to cancel appointments alleged to have made through unfair means, the Nagaland Police department has maintained that none of the constables recruited were “backdoor appointments”.

In a press release issued on Saturday, the director general of police, Nagaland stated that appointments made by respective unit commanders were in accordance with the established rules, notifications and standing guidelines of the government.

“It is thus wished to inform the public at large that any attempt by any unions/associations or individual to delay or stop the training of the newly appointed constables will adversely impact  the functioning of the department in particular and the law and order in general. The training institutes, namely NAPTC and PTS, located at Police Complex Chümoukedima, are professional centres of excellence and have been conducting training of the recruit constables for the last many years catering to the need of the state at large,” read the statement.

It stated that vacancies in the department cannot be kept for long as the police primarily deals with law and order duties. “As such, the P&AR office memorandum No. AR-3/Gen147/2007 (Pt) Dated December 7, 2016, while setting out the procedure for filling up Grade-III and IV posts in government departments, has exempted the Police department from the purview of this memorandum.

“To streamline the excess appointment of police constables/NCEs, the government had issued an Order No. POL/ESTT/MISC/6/2018, Dated September 5, 2018, to constitute scrutiny committee, headed by IGP (Hqr) with DIGP (Hqr) and AIGP (Adm) as members. This committee scrutinised the applications received by the units and at PHQ. The committee after thorough scrutiny of the applications had to obtain the concurrence of the DGP and forward the eligible candidates to various units. On receipt of the selected list from PHQ, the unit commanders appoint the candidates after ensuring that the eligible criteria are fulfilled. All appointments were done against the clear existing vacancies,” read the statement.

For the first time in the history of the department, ‘in the absence of a new battalion creation’, an open recruitment rally was held in 2019, for filling up of 206 regular vacancies in the post of constables though there is no mandatory provision for an open recruitment in the Nagaland Police Manual or any other order issued by the state government, it stated.

“Since there was no training session for the year 2019, either in NAPTC or PTS, recruit constable trainees during the year 2020 is an accumulation of backlogs of open recruitment and those appointments made by the unit commanders through the PHQ screening committee and includes all such appointments from last few years. In the whole process, the backward quota and 33% women reservation quota for appointments in the DEF is followed strictly,” it stated.

Further, it informed that after the issue was discussed in the Assembly, the state government had constituted a high-level committee vide Notification No.POL/ESTT/RECRUITMENT/1/2020 dated February 20, 2020, headed by additional chief secretary level officer.

“In this regard, the committee has submitted this report to the government which is under examination,” it informed.