By Tarique Anwar, TwoCircles.net,
Patna : A group of social activists issued a joint press statement after a meeting held on 15th July in the state capital here demanding resignation of Professor Arun Kumar, acting Chairman of Bihar Legislative Council, and nomination of a Muslim Chairman in his place.
They said in the statement that Professor Jabir Hussain, ex-chairman of Bihar Legislative Council and presently Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), has given clarifications about the appointments made by him in Bihar Intermediate Education Council and Bihar Legislative Council. After this Professor Arun Kumar, acting chairman of the Council, has no right to continue on his post. “Now that all the facts regarding appointments have been made public, and no discrepancy has been found in those appointments, Arun Kumar should resign from his post and the government should nominate a Muslim as the chairman of the Council”, they demanded in the statement.
Jabir Hussain held the post from 1995 to 2006. After he left the office in the wake of the RJD lost the election, allegations were leveled against him that he violated rules in making appointments.
They stated that Professor Arun Kumar should consider on appointments of 58 people made in 1985 and should fulfill demands of the people appointed by Professor Jabir Hussain and must set up an impartial inquiry in this matter. Appointments made in 1985, 1992 and 1994 were illegal and violated all rules and the rule of reservation was not implemented in this process of appointments. Great injustice had been done with Dalits, the downtrodden and minority community of the state, they alleged.
The social activists who have demanded nomination of a Muslim as chairman of the Council include Shamshad Alam, Shafiquz Zaman, Najamul Hasan, Masoodur Rahman, Rakesh Ranjan, Ram Manoj Prasad Singh, Ram Kishore Singh and Shakuntla Devi.
They further said all appointments made by Professor Jabir Hussain were authentic and as per norms. The appointments followed all legal process like invitation of application through advertisement in local newspapers, conduction of interviews and selection on the basis of interview. In this appointment people of all community had been given their rights.
The statement says that the whole process of inquiry of termination of 72 employees who were appointed by Professor Jabir Hussain can only be done properly under guidance of Professor Arun Kumar when he will not be the chairman of the council.
They expressed hope that Professor Arun Kumar, acting chairman Bihar Legislative Council, will resign from his post for proper inquiry based on justice.
They have also demanded inquiry of all appointments in the State Legislative Council from 1965.
They suspected that a conspiracy is being hatched in order to terminate all those 70 Muslims including general, OBC and Dalit categories, and 55 Hindus of Dalit community appointed by Professor Jabir Hussain during his tenure (1995 to 2006) as the chairman of the council because Muslims and downtrodden section of the society are considered as inferior everywhere.
Talking to TwoCircles.net on phone Professor Jabir Hussain condemned all allegations against him regarding illegal appointments in the state Legislative Council and Bihar Intermediate Council and said these allegations are baseless and only aimed to malign somebody. He said he has got published details of all appointments under his chairmanship in all leading newspapers of the state. “It was indeed, part of a deep-rooted conspiracy, hatched possibly by the Council authorities.
He said he has provided a copy of his letter to the Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities in which he said there was a well-planned conspiracy behind the termination of Md Danish, resident of Patna City, from the Council.
Md Danish appeared in annual examination conducted by Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) from Dr Zakir Hussain High School, Sultanganj, Patna, in 2001. His roll no. was 108 and was counted in some meritorious students of his school but the authorities of the board failed him without evaluating his answer sheet properly. He got only 04 marks in Mathematics. Md Jalaluddin Ansari, his father who was the only bread earner for his family, suffered a set-back at the bands of some unscrupulous elements in the board and lost his life due to heart attack.
Danish gave an application to the board for reevaluation of his answer sheet as per norms of the board. He was shown his answer sheet in the office of BSEB. He was very surprised seeing 8 pages of the main answer sheet and 16 additional pages were absent. Only those pages were intact on which his roll number and the number of additional pages provided him were mentioned.
He urged authorities of the board to look into this matter but they all denied to d anything. Then he approached Professor Jabir Hussain, the then chairman of Bihar Legislative Council, to interfere in this matter. It was on his direct intervention that he could get justice. Dr Hussain ordered Mr Subhash Sharma, IAS, Chairman BSEB, and Mr Hasan Waris, secretary BSEB, to turn up in his office and to inquire this matter at the earliest.
After inquiry the board accepted Danish’s complains right and gave him an average marks (60) in Mathematics and in this way he declared successful with 67% marks.
But that’s an old story.
His recent experience in the Bihar Legislative Council, after Professor Hussain relinquished office and went over to Rajya Sabha, is most horrifying.
When some appointments on vacant positions of Bihar Legislative Council made he also applied and got selected for 4th grade employee in the council. He joined council secretariat on 10th April 2006.
Meanwhile Md Yamin, senior joint secretary of the council, ordered him along with his two other colleagues (Ejaz Ahmad and Rahul Kumar Sharma) to search for the original copy of an application to file an affidavit in Patna High Court in the strong room. When they were busy in searching the application then Professor Arun Kumar, Chairman of the Council, Mungeshwar Sahu, secretary, Ram Swarth Prasad, private secretary of the chairman, and Tribhuvan Singh, marshal, suddenly appeared in the strong room as per a well organized conspiracy. They also called officers of secretariat police station. After some time all three got arrested on complain (no. 536/06 secretariat police station) of Tribhuvan Singh and finally sent to Phulwari Jail. They remained in the jail for 29 days from 21-06-2006 to 20-07-2006.
Inquiry officers of this case inquired this matter deeply and declared all charges against them were baseless, false and fabricated on 14-07-2006 and submitted their report in the court. The court declared them innocent and released them.
For no fault of his and two of his colleagues, he was kept in jail for about a month. The FIR against these boys was ultimately found baseless.
Reality is this that all these things were fabricated to terminate them and they succeeded in their conspiracy and they were terminated from the council on 22-07-2006.
This was only an example how appointees of Professor Hussain removed from their posts on account of false allegations. This incident shows what goes on in the ugly corridors of power.