Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 12

Amid the controversy over the appointment of a grandson of former CM Beant Singh as DSP, the state Legal Department has raised an objection to an ex-serviceman’s case backed by the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO).Major Sumer Singh (retd) had applied for the DSP’s post in the ex-servicemen quota in 2015, but the matter didn’t make headway. With the change of guard in the state, his case has been fast-tracked, reportedly at the insistence of a senior political appointee in the CMO, with instructions to the Home and Personnel Departments to initiate the process for his appointment.After the CM’s approval, the Home Department relaxed the height criterion for this candidate. However, the Legal Department has stated that such a move is not in conformity with the provisions of Rule 14 of the Punjab Police Service Rules, 1959.As per the Legal Department, the minimum height stipulated for the DSP’s post is 5 ft 7 inches and the norm can’t be changed after the initiation of the selection process. Moreover, recruitment has already been completed and the posts filled. The post with relaxed norms can be filled through an advertisement against a new vacancy, the department has said.Relaxation in the criteria for age and educational qualification for Guriqbal Singh, the ex-CM’s grandson, had drawn flak from about 200 contractual employees, whose services were not regularised on the plea that they had got degrees from other states’ universities through distance education.