THE GOAN NETWORK
PANAJI
The Goa Human Rights Commission (GHRC) on Wednesday took suo moto cognisance of the eight mamlatdars who have not received their salaries for the past six months.
Member Secretary of the Commission AD Salkar issued a notice to the Chief Secretary, Personnel Secretary and Revenue Secretary, asking them to submit a detailed report about the same before March 15.
The order states that "non payment of salary in time to the employees is a clear infringement of fundamental right as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India and also amounts (to) violation of basic human rights of the victims."
The order also states that non payment of salaries for a period of six months is not at all justified.
As reported first in 'The Goan' on February 25, technical reasons left eight mamlatdars high and dry without their salaries for the last six months.
These eight mamlatdars, some of whom are promotees, were appointed on an ad-hoc basis till now. And, on expiry of their ad-hoc service period, the state government did not take any decision to either extend their period of ad-hoc service or to regularise them. It is for this technical reason that their salaries have remained unpaid for the last six months.
The Goa Government Employees Association (GGEA) had raised the issue with Chief Secretary Parimal Rai IAS and demanded immediate resolution of the problem.
“Mamlatdar is a very sensitive post and during elections they play an important role. Now government is playing with the fate of these eight mamlatdars and the uncertainty of their job will certainly affect their delivery,” said John Nazareth, President of GGEA.
As per government procedure the Personnel Department, Revenue Department and Goa Public Service Commission (GPSC) are responsible to either extend the ad-hoc appointments or regularise the services.
After the proposal comes to the GPSC, it holds a meeting to either recommend extension of the ad-hoc service or regularize them as mamlatdars.
After Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar ordered that ad-hoc appointments be done away with, unless in extreme necessity, these Mamlatdars are likely to be regularised. But the procedure to regularise them has for unknown reasons not gone ahead.
Also, once the code of conduct for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections comes into force, the process may get deferred even further by at least 3 months.
