Days after Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel alleged bias against applicants from Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in government jobs in Uttar Pradesh, the Yogi Adityanath-led State government sent a detailed reply to Ms. Patel, explaining that quota posts remaining vacant after the selection process could not be converted to unreserved posts, as claimed by her.
Ms. Patel is the national president of the Apna Dal (Soneylal), an ally of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in U.P.
The government also said that applicants were given grades; no one was rejected with “not suitable” remarks; and the candidates’ personal details were not shown to interviewers.
“The candidates from OBC and SC/ST communities are constantly contacting me and saying that they are often declared ‘Not Found Suitable’ for the posts reserved for them in various competitive examinations conducted by the State government that have an interview-based recruitment process. Later, these posts are declared unreserved,” Ms. Patel said in her letter of June 27 to Mr. Adityanath. This angered the job aspirants from these communities, she added.
Sources said the State government took Ms. Patel’s allegations seriously and the Chief Minister’s Office asked the concerned department to reply to the Union Minister.
In the reply sent to Ms. Patel, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Appointment and Personnel, Devesh Chaturvedi, said the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) submitted that the interview process was based on coding, with the candidate’s name, registration, roll number, category, and age covered. In this way, personal details were not placed before the interview board.
“....the interview board does not mention ‘not suitable’ in the mark sheet, but the candidate is provided with grade which is converted into marks to be noted in the final mark-sheets,” Mr. Chaturvedi’s letter said.
Additional Chief Secretary also said that if candidates of the given categories did not clear the exam for the given vacancies, then the UPPSC did not have the right to convert the resulting unfilled vacancies to any other category.
“... rather such vacancies are carried forward by taking action according to the procedure prescribed in the Government Order,” the letter said.
