SHIKARPUR: The Sindh Public Service Commission (SPSC) is tasked to receive applications and conduct examinations in a transparent and impartial manner and select candidates for the civil service, including the police. It also announced 700 vacancies of assistant sub-inspectors (ASI) in Grade 9, in June 2011, under the Police Order of 2002. Of these, 334 vacancies were to be filled from among head constables or police constables already in service and who were graduates.
Thousands of candidates submitted applications in this regard along with a fee of Rs500. In October of this year, call letters were issued only to the police personnel for examination to be conducted by the SPSC. The letters had hardly been issued when it was announced through the official website that the offer of vacant posts was being withdrawn!
The same posts were again announced through a Sindhi newspaper advertisement on December 8. In this, no seats were set aside for head constables or constables. The advertisement also said that the recruitment process would be conducted by the home department and not the SPSC. Changing the selection process from the SPSC — which has a good reputation — to the home department can often mean political interference.
It is ironic that at a time when the province’s law and order situation is going from bad to worse, there should be these kinds of shenanigans and that, too, in a department as crucial to fight crime as the police. I request the Sindh government to assign the selection process of ASIs to the SPSC so that the appointments can be done on merit and not on a political basis.
AB Noonari
Published in The Express Tribune, December 14th, 2012.
