In a first of its kind, the Government of Arunachal Pradesh on Tuesday placed former secretary of the Arunachal Pradesh Staff Selection Board (APSSB), SK Jain on suspension following the APSSB examination fiasco. Jain has become the first serving IAS officer to be suspended in the state.
Five people, including former undersecretary of APSSB, Kapter Ringu have been arrested in this case. There has been allegation of malpractice in the common examination for lower divisional clerk, junior secretariat assistant and other posts, held on 2 February by the APSSB. The examination has been suspended and it will be re-conducted on a later date.
There has been growing pressure on the government to suspend senior officials, including former chairman AC Verma and member GS Meena. Besides suspending secretary Jain, the government has also constituted an enquiry committee which has been asked to submit its report within the next 21 days.
This is for the first time that the government has suspended a high profile IAS officer, and Chief Minister Pema Khandu deserves appreciation for the bold step. It will send out a strong message that nobody will be spared regardless of their position when such mistakes are committed. The era of IAS and IPS officers being untouched has perhaps ended with this move of suspending Jain. The Government of Arunachal Pradesh often tends to overlook the gross mistakes committed by the IAS and IPS officers because of the strongly lobby of the IAS/IPS association. For now, the whole state will be waiting to hear the outcome of the enquiry committee’s report, and the state government should make it a point to make the report public once the committee submits it to the government.