Editor,
In the first place let me thank for the queen’s English of Larisashisha Lyngkhoi’s rejoinder “Justifying the Unjustifiable” that surfaced in your esteemed daily on 25.10.’25 for having curtly reciprocated my letter (HP 0ctober 23, 2025) captioned “Unjustifiable decision?” To call a spade a spade, l have to gently nudge Lyngkhoi that in my letter l have, in essence, no axe to grind in championing the cause of any Ad-hoc appointee whatsoever! Indubitably, my sole purported aim was to bring to light the inexorable irregularities that prevail in our official ecosystem in terms of slipshod absorption into government job-vacancies. In fact l have expressed my surprise how Ad-hoc workers appointed post 31st December,2007 could leverage eight packages which are the exclusive reserves of the legally selected candidates? The readers must have markedly/obviously noted on the title of my letter l have put a question mark (?) on the unjustifiable process of job-recruitments. Hence, to denounce me as “Justifying the Unjustifiable” is like missing the wood for the trees!
Let me remind the writer by invoking the foregoing dynamics, l, for one, do not intend in the least to harbour, or still better, to champion the cause of the Ad-hoc workers! Contrastingly, l have broached the year 1978 when the then State government was reportedly of the considered view to lock stock and barrel ban Ad-hoc appointments and as far as I can get the picture of this issue it was in that year, vide letter No.PER (AR)239 /80/49/ Dtd 30th January, 1978 the government came out with a firm resolution to ban any 3(f)/ Ad-hoc co-option in all state government departments, wherefore the Personnel Department had circulated an 0rder to all State departments not to embark on engaging any Ad-hoc appointment forthwith, but the same is flouted in a subtle nuances.
To all intents and purposes, my presentation was not to defend the indefensible but to honestly give expression to the festering metaphor that exists in our system. Incidentally, one of my friends holding a gazetted post in the early 1980s told me that he had flagged the issue to the officers of higher echelons against the veritable dire consequences that the Ad-hoc appointees could face the music in the fullness of time but to his timely sane advice there was no taker. All things considered, my write up was to focus on the humanitarian aspects of what shall be the fate of those Ad-hoc appointees who had been employed for almost 18 years ago who had accepted their respective appointment letters issued by the departmental authorities, thinking such documents as true as gospel truth? As if that wasn’t bad enough, l am at my wit’s end to imagine the fatalistic reactions of the Ad-hoc fraternities who may fail in the open competitive recruitment test supposedly to be held in near future; my crusade, per se was basically to question the impending fate of those Ad-hoc workers who have served since almost 18 years some nearing 50 years of age but who would cut a sorry figure in a challenging recruitment process vis-a-vis against the freshly qualified rookies from seat of learning! The former could, therefore, be tethering between Scylla and Charybdis. Hence, my core points of discourse, viewed from the humanitarian aspects, was that such irregularities could have been nipped in the bud right from nearly half a century ago, now whom to pass the buck for these regulatory lapses? It was nothing short of Leo Tolstoy’s story “A spark neglected burns the house”.
Be that as it may, Lyngkoi must know that l, in all sincerity, feel for him and other innumerable job applicants who may well deserve to fill up government jobs by virtue of the Ad-hoc appointees. Fine, l am obliged to advise the writer to read well between the lines before embarking on comments, as s/he may be barking up the wrong tree!
JK Diengdoh
Shillong-2
Via e-mail
