Victory for student community: RPP on appts of NSSB officials

February 16, 2022 79 Views No Comment

February 16, 2022

Rising People’s Party (RPP) has termed the appointment of Nagaland Staff Selection Board (NSSB) chairman and secretary on Monday as a victory for the student community.

Narrating the genesis of the issue, the party in a press release recalled that ACAUT had raised the matter with the State government in 2016. Later, PSAN continued the struggle, before NSF had prevailed upon the Neiphiu Rio government in 2020 to set up the body.

Thus, on July 20, 2020 the government issued a notification constituting NSSB for recruitment of Group-C posts in departments, it added.

Unfortunately, even almost after a year of the notification, NSSB remained non-functional. Rather, RPP said the State government had issued a contrary notification on July 16, 2021 stating that 1,576 vacant posts in 76 departments, among other things, should be filled up through departmental exams.

The party said the July 16 notification violated the letter and spirit of NSSB notification, periling the career of thousands of hardworking and sincere students hoping for an end to the backdoor era.

Since the State government back-tracked on its commitment to operationalise NSSB, RPP mentioned that it had knocked on the doors of Gauhati High Court, Kohima Bench and filed a public interest litigation (PIL) through its counsel Neiteo Koza. Thereafter, on September 1, 2021, judges Songkhupchung Serto and S Hukato admitted the PIL and suspended the July 16 notification “till the returnable date.” Later, judge Kakheto Sema dwelt on the case as well, the release added.

Meanwhile, even s pressure was piling on the State government from different quarters, NSF had on September 3, 2021 threatened democratic agitation against the government. Responding to the NSF ultimatum, the government issued a notification on October 4, 2021 advertising posts of chairperson and secretary of NSSB. And on September 21, 2021, an RPP team met Rio and apprised him of the issue. Yet, the party noted, nothing happened for more than four months.

Though the high court was in favour of settling the case without delay, the government’s counsel kept appealing against this on one pretext or the other. Finally, the judges issued an ultimatum to the government “to come with instruction on the next date, that is, 16th February 2022, as to when the board would be constituted” else, the court warned “this court would be compelled to issue the necessary order or direction for constituting the board within a specific period of time.”

Left with no option, the party said the government issued a notification appointing the chairman and secretary of NSSB on Monday.

Nevertheless, thanking the chief minister for the appointments, RPP said the public in general and the student community in particular should be grateful that there were publicly-spirited judges who stood for young people from day one and for the “dreams and aspirations of the people of Nagaland, especially the young people who are still unemployed”, as observed in their latest February 2, 2022 order.

Source: https://www.nagalandpost.com/index.php/victory-for-student-community-rpp-on-appts-of-nssb-officials/