An ‘Absorption’ Fiasco and a 'Culture of Corruption' in Nagaland Teachers’ Recruitment

Even as the Supreme Court offers some respite to “untainted” government-school teachers in West Bengal caught in the crossroads of a recruitment scam, in Nagaland, a similar incident is playing out to a different end. The recent decision of the Nagaland government, effected in December 2024, to ‘absorb’ or regularise 147 contractual assistant professors including a few librarians under the department of higher education into regular service has attracted widespread condemnation and instigated spirited protests. 

The backlash has forced the government to keep the regularisation in abeyance and constitute a 5-member committee to review the move.

A number of issues are embroiled. First, the unconstitutionality of the appointments: almost all these employees were appointed without open advertisement via the ‘back door’. 

Second is the qualifications, or lack thereof, of those appointed. Upon cross examining the list of regularised employees with their details available in the suo motu disclosure of the directorate of higher education for 2021-22 – made under the RTI Act and presumed to be accurate – the author has determined that more than 70 had neither NET nor PhD, as of 2022.

Third, the contravention of the state government’s own office memorandum, of June 6, 2016, banning contractual employment: at least 63 have been appointed after that date. 

Fourth, the violation of high court orders; to take one instance, in a writ petition filed in 2022 and still pending, the Kohima bench of the Gauhati high court had issued an interim directive that the services of the contract employees impleaded shall not be regularised. All of them have been regularised. 

Fifth, the legality of regularisation itself. In this regard, the Supreme Court in State of Karnataka vs Uma Devi (2006) clearly lays down that regularisation ‘is not and cannot be made a mode of recruitment by any state’, that it cannot confer permanence to adhoc employees, and that the fact that some have been working for a long time does not confer a right for regularisation.

These and a host of other questions have already been raised by a number of petitions before the high court. While the high court has appeared sympathetic, many of these were disposed of on ground of lack of maintainability and locus standi. As a result, as many as 12 fresh writ petitions filed in 2023 challenging 85 posts and another petition from 2022 challenging 30 posts have been filed and are pending before the high court.

In the light of all these, the state government’s decision cannot be described as anything other than a shockingly blatant and brazen administrative disregard of not just the sanctity and authority of the judicial system but also the government’s very own declared commitments, forget about such values of the constitution as equality and fairness.

This unfortunate affair has moreover distracted from more critical concerns, often raised, about the mode of recruiting assistant professors adopted by the Nagaland Public Service Commission (NPSC). 

The Common Educational Services Exam (CESE) conducted by the NPSC for recruiting assistant professors awards 15% for interview, 45% for the written component (4 papers of 100 marks each, 2 papers in the relevant subject), and 40% as academic weightage. In an exam where having NET is a preliminary requirement, and where research degrees such as Mphil or PhD and publications are not considered, the 40% ‘academic weightage’ astonishingly takes into account marks obtained during matriculation, higher secondary, bachelors and masters!

For veteran observers, none of these varied ‘irregularities’ are new or even surprising. What is different this time is that those who are directly affected happen to be the most educated lot in the state. They are aware of their constitutional rights and have the ability to mobilise challenges across various flanks. While the questions of legality, constitutionality and administrative propriety will without a doubt continue to be pursued in the courts, the main struggle is perhaps against societal conscience.

B.R. Ambedkar, though himself an avid campaigner for equal rights and opportunities, had perceptively pointed out that ultimately, it is ‘the social and moral conscience’ that is the final guarantee of rights, not so much the law or even the constitution itself. This is particularly apt in a society where scholars have detected – although this is no secret – a ‘culture of corruption’.

While many apex tribal students’ bodies have slowly come out against the government’s decision, it remains telling that the apex tribal organisations or, for that matter, the church have so far maintained a troubling tranquility on the issue. These organisations are generally unrivaled in their alacrity and unsparing in their outrage and have often exercised their considerable powers to hold the government to account or indeed in hostage, as happened in 2016 regarding the 33% reservations for women in local bodies. 

Their deadening silence on the current issue may indicate a tacit tolerance and acceptance, if not open encouragement, of appointment by clandestine connections, available only to the powerful and privileged, rather than by open competition, where at least there is formal equality of opportunity for all. 

The unsettling prognosis, though one hopes to be proven wrong, is that Naga society on the whole might be too morally comfortable with its ‘culture of corruption’.

Chiangmong Khiamniungan is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad.

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