Patiala: Weeks after Punjab higher education and languages secretary Sonali Giri served a show-cause notice to Punjab language department director Jaswant Singh Zafar over alleged irregularities in recruiting research assistants, the director has shot off a letter to chief minister Bhagwant Mann, seeking his intervention in the issue.Giri said the notice was served in August and currently the department was verifying alleged violations of the reservation roster and selection criteria. She pointed out that discrepancies had emerged in the verification of research articles submitted by candidates, some allegedly published after the cut-off date.She said the recruitment process began before Zafar’s tenure, but he advanced it without rectifying roster violations and repeatedly skipped review and monitoring meetings convened by the secretariat.Meanwhile, Zafar sent CM Mann a six-page letter on Sept 7 this year, alleging ‘bureaucratic high-handedness’ and seeking action against Giri. He said 42 of 50 research assistant posts were vacant and Subordinate Services Selection Board had finalised the selection after seeking legal advice from Punjab Advocate General. It forwarded 36 candidates for appointment letters.“The high court has not placed any stay on the recruitment. The department director is the competent authority to issue joining letters and is accountable to the courts, not the administrative secretariat,” Zafar told the Times of India. The recruitment had faced scrutiny after candidates with postgraduate science degrees, including zoology, were shortlisted for language-related posts. Zafar said a multidisciplinary technical pool was required to develop scientific terminology, dictionaries and digital computing tools.“If there are discrepancies in four, five, or ten individual files or articles, those specific candidates can be scrutinised or excluded. But using that as an excuse to stall the entire recruitment of over 30 qualified Punjabi youth — many of whom hold PhDs — points to a deliberate design by the bureaucracy to scuttle the department’s hiring,” he said.Zafar contended that as he was appointed directly by chief minister on June 25-2024, only Mann could authorise disciplinary proceedings or a show-cause notice against him. He said higher education minister Harjot Singh Bains was also not consulted before the notice was issued.Zafar also alleged that allocations for books, literary journals, computing development and Urdu Academy in Malerkotla had been blocked for 2026-27. Service extensions for ad-hoc sweepers, gardeners and peons had allegedly been withheld since April 1, while promotion files of assistant directors remained pending.
