In its report submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court the VB alleged that the entire process for selection of the medical officers was vitiated by the Commission members to facilitate selection of their favourites who included kin of influential people.

Capt. Amarinder Singh, Punjab Congress President has charged the government with trying to subvert the independence of a constitutional body. The government, he said, was trying to pressurize Commission’s members either to submit to Akali-BJP rulers diktats or quit. “The government wants to reconstitute the Commission by inducting its own people in it so that selections for senior posts including of PCS officers take place as per its will”, he said.

The matter had reached High Court when Amarinder Singh’s appointee PPSC chief Sanjit Kumar Sinha, moved a petition on April 9, 2010 for probe by CBI or a retired High court judge into the allegations levelled against the PPSC in selection of medical officers. The High Court has not yet taken the VB’s report formally on record.

Punjab Public Service Commission is not the only constitutional body which has been a victim of subversion attempts under different parties rule. The process had gained momentum during the Emergency. In Punjab it witnessed its worst form after the appointment of Ravinder Pal Singh Sidhu, a journalist, as PPSC chairman by the Congress Chief Minister Harcharan Singh Brar during his five months rule in 1995-96. Sidhu was later charged with taking huge bribes from candidates applying for different posts.

Just before the Akali-BJP tenure ended in 2002, Chief Minister Badal wrote to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on October 10 and December 26, 2001 requesting him to appoint Sidhu as a member of the Union Public Service Commission. He also twice personally talked to Vajpayee pressing his request. But Vajpayee did not take any action.

After taking over as Chief Minister in 2002 Amarinder Singh sent feelers to Sidhu asking him to resign. But Sidhu refused saying it would not be easy for the government to remove the head of a constitutional body.

After some time, a Vigilance Bureau team raided Sidhu’s official residence and recovered bribe money allegedly received from a candidate who had applied for a post. The scale at which Sidhu’s bribe taking spree had been taking place was indicated by the TV images of bundles of currency notes tumbling out of Sidhu’s and his family members Bank lockers when the Vigilance people opened these lockers.

Selections by the PPSC have been taking place in most cases for considerations other than merit. This has not been happening in Punjab alone. Haryana was also its victim particularly during the Om Parkash Chautala-led INLD’s 1999-2005 rule. Then the corridors of Haryana secretariat used to be abuzz with rumours that the lists of candidates for selection for different posts by Haryana’s official recruitment bodies including Public Service Commission used to be prepared or got approved from the Chief Minister office. Before the 2005 Assembly elections which saw the ouster of the INLD from power, some of the HPSC members whose tenure was still to end were asked to resign so that the new Chautala appointees were in place during the new government’s term.

On coming to power, the first promise every party makes is to provide clean governance. But the level and standards of governance have been deteriorating and corruption growing. The very rulers who promise clean governance spread the malaise. Selections by the state recruitment agencies are made on extraneous considerations. Those who get selected by paying bribes are always eager not only to recover the money they had paid to get jobs but also to accumulate assets for themselves. In the process the malaise of corruption spreads.

The low level to which public life is sinking is indicated by the personal attacks the politicians make against their political opponents or their families. Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said at a Press conference at Panjhgrahian in Batala on February 15 that PCC chief Amarinder Singh had launched a personal vendetta against his family, particularly against his wife who, at present was undergoing cancer treatment at a hospital in USA. “This does not suit Amarinder Singh’s stature as a former Chief Minister”. Badal said he had never attacked Amarinder Singh’s family and would never do so. He, however, would not be able to make similar claims about other Akali leaders including his son Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal. Soon after the Akali-BJP government came to power in 2007 they had started publicly attacking Amarinder Singh targeting his private life. If Amarinder Singh’s comments Badal has quoted are correct, then it is a sad reflection of the low levels public debate in Punjab have touched.

In this region, Parkash Singh Badal and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda both of whom have amiable temperament are known for never making personal attacks against their opponents or their families. In these times when rulers are becoming increasingly intolerant to criticism, their attitude, unlike that of some former Chief Ministers, towards the media is not hostile. They have never asked journalists to report in their favour or not to write against them. In fact, Hooda has often publicly declared that he welcomed media’s unbiased criticism saying it helped him remove his government’s shortcomings.

Punjab direly needs two things for making its public life relatively cleaner. One: Ensure that selections for government jobs are made on merit and not on extraneous considerations. Two: Politicians must stop making personal attacks against their political opponents or their families. (IPA Service)