Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has given a ruling in favour of all the 18 Indian Telecom Service (ITS) officers allowing them to appear in the interview for the post of director (Enterprises) in the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) board.
They were earlier disqualified by the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) as the department of telecommunications (DoT) forwarded their applications to PESB after deadline.
This restricted the number of candidates to only 6, instead of 37 qualifying candidates, giving rise to apprehensions on the fairness of selection. Those who have been qualified now include Anil Kaushal, Deepak Chaturvedi and Alok Kaul all chief general managers. R N Jha deputy director general (DDG-IR) and Vipin Kumar Senior DDG (Vigilance) are among those qualified to appear in the interview, which will be held on March 22.
The ITS Association has hailed the judgement and is of the view that all the remaining 13 ITS officers who did not go to CAT should also be allowed to appear in the interview by PESB in view of the principal of natural justice.
DoT secretary P J Thomas also supported the ITS officers. “It may kindly be noted that the applicants do not appear to be at fault in this regard and hence, I request you to consider these applicants so as to facilitate selection from a wider range of officers,” Thomas wrote in a letter to Chewang Phunsog, chairman of Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB)
{{/usCountry}}DoT secretary P J Thomas also supported the ITS officers. “It may kindly be noted that the applicants do not appear to be at fault in this regard and hence, I request you to consider these applicants so as to facilitate selection from a wider range of officers,” Thomas wrote in a letter to Chewang Phunsog, chairman of Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB)
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