PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa has given the Goa government until October 19 to reply to a petition seeking the scrapping of posts and the controversial recruitment of posts to the Health Department while it permitted the government to file additional responses to the claims by those candidates who were selected to the PWD posts, that were scrapped and who had challenged the scrapping.
Hearing a bunch of petitions filed by Shailendra Velingkar, who questioned the recruitment in the Health Department, Godwin Xavier Pereira who questioned the recruitment in the PWD department as well as the aggrieved selected candidates, the High Court has now posted the matter for October 19.
“The respondents are directed to file their affidavits addressing the issues raised in this Petition (Health Department), within a maximum period of four weeks from today. Advance copies to be furnished to the learned Counsel for the Petitioner,” the High Court ruled.
When it came to the PWD posts, the Advocate General, told the court that all the selections made to various posts in the Public Works Department, have been cancelled and therefore, submits that the grievance, insofar as they relate to the selections made to PWD posts, will not survive.
Recruitment to the PWD Department that was being conducted prior to the Goa Assembly elections was hugely controversial and was the subject to a high level inquiry conducted by the Vigilance Department led by the Chief Secretary after several MLAs -- most prominently Panaji MLA Atanasio Monserrate -- complaining of large scale corruption in the recruitment process.
Then PWD Minister Deepak Prabhu Pauskar was denied a BJP ticket in the wake of the scam.
The Goa government headed by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had earlier told the Bombay High court that it is scrapping the entire process of recruitment of junior engineers in the Public Works Department.
The process was earlier put on hold by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant after complaints from his own MLAs that the process was rigged by the then PWD Minister Deepak Pauskar, who was later denied a ticket by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The Goa government had launched a vigilance inquiry into the alleged sale of jobs by the Minister of Public Works Deepak Pauskar, who was accused by his own party colleagues of selling government jobs for up to Rs 35-lakh.
“All these Petitions are now posted for orders/directions on October 19, 2022,” the High Court also said.
