Paramilitary Recruitment: Protests Continue as SSC Fails to Adhere to Court Orders

Delhi: Over two years of protests, first at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, then a 72-day hunger strike in Maharashtra’s Nagpur, endless letters to ministers and MPs, a foot march from Nagpur to Delhi, and a legal battle in Delhi High Court for over a year describe the struggle of the SSC GD 2018 students. They have been relentlessly demanding the posts for which they are duly qualified. 

The Staff Selection Commission General Duty (SSC GD) is a vacancy released by the central government for recruitment to paramilitary forces such as the BSF, CRPF, Assam Rifles, etc. Earlier, before 2011, the responsibility for recruitment to these forces was in the hands of each department that took separate exams. However, in 2011, the responsibility was given to the Staff Selection Commission(SSC).

In 2018, the central government released a notification for 60,210 posts for recruitment to the paramilitary forces for the constable post. This was followed by a series of tests that candidates had to take; after the completion of all rounds, 1,09,000 students were declared qualified. Out of this big pool, the advertised number of posts was to be filled.

However, things did not follow the course that they were supposed to. Only 56,000 posts were filled, and around 4,000 seats were left vacant without any plausible reason. The 4,000 students close to making the cutoff were deprived of jobs. Although mere qualification did not guarantee them a confirmed allotment, if the Centre had filled those 4,000 posts, many of the thousands protesting nationwide would have made it to the list.

This situation sparked protests in the national capital, which soon started knocking on the doors of government officials and the SSC headquarters. But all in vain. Between the protests, a few candidates in Delhi led by Roopak Kumar decided to take the matter to court. A petition was filed, and the legal course began. 

Asmita, a 24-year-old, is a resident of a village in Chattisgarh’s Bastar district. Unlike the urban areas, most of the kids in her village are enrolled in sports from an early age. However, it is still known to be something boys would do. “When I decided to take up sports, there were not a lot of girls who would do it. We were not allowed to do so, but things are changing slowly,” Asmita told NewsClick. 

She lives in a small one-room kitchen house with her three brothers and mother. Her father passed away long back. Asmita wanted to change the stereotype; being good at sports, she wanted to join the paramilitary forces and serve the country. She would wake up at four in the morning to complete the household chores, after which she would go to the ground nearby, where seniors would train her and others. After this, she would come home to prepare food and work on the farms with her mother. This would be followed by another round of sports, and then ultimately self-study at night for the written examination. 

The 2018 vacancy was her last hope, she said, or else she would not be fit age-wise for the constable recruitment. If she did not pass the test, she was sure that her mother, owing to societal pressure, would eventually marry her off. A spring of happiness ran across the family and the village when Asmita made it to the qualifying pool for the 2018 vacancies. However, she missed the cutoff just by a few marks and was unable to get the uniform. However, had the Centre completed the recruitment for all the advertised posts and not left thousands of seats vacant, she was sure to have made it. Her brother is currently serving under the CRPF. But her dream remains unfulfilled despite being a part of protests, walking from Nagpur to Delhi, and voicing her thoughts.

After the protests were stopped by the administration and the candidates sent back to their respective hometowns, there arose a sight of hope. The Delhi High Court’s long-due verdict in the case of vacancies of SSC GD 2018 gave the students, who had been fighting the case, some hope. On December 21, 2022, the court pronounced that the Centre must fill the advertised posts as mentioned earlier. It also ordered the Centre to complete the process within four weeks. The new year has begun, two months have passed, and no sign of a joining letter is there even today. 

Roopak, who led the students to the court, comes from a lower-middle-class family in Delhi. His father’s kidneys have failed, and he depends solely on dialysis. “While my father juggles between life and death, I am fighting for a job that I am qualified for and am not getting due to the government’s negligence. I manage somehow with some part-time work, but if I had the paramilitary job in my hand, the situation at home could have been better,” Roopak said while speaking to NewsClick. “When the Delhi HC gave its verdict, I thought the wait was finally over. Little did I know that the struggle would not end there,” he added.

The candidate from Delhi claims that he has visited the SSC office time and again, seeking his joining letter with the Court’s verdict in his hands. However, the officials always told him they had not received approval from their superiors for joining these candidates. And unless that happened, they could not do anything. The last time a delegation of these candidates met with the SSC officials was on February 20 2023. 

“They assured us that our file was in process, and although the Court’s order gave a duration of four weeks, the paperwork would take time. We had no option but to believe them,” narrated Roopak. This is why the candidates have not approached the Court regarding contempt. 

Seeing the lack of response from the govt despite the court order, the candidates have often taken to social media. They have attempted to do Twitter storms as well, just in case their urges reach the right people. The most recent Twitter campaign announced by these candidates is supposed to happen on March 13 2023. 

This is not the first time the SSC has been under the brunt of a legal battle. Even in the case of the 2015 SSC GD recruitment cycle, the commission left around 5,000 posts vacant. Students then filed a case as well, and the High Courts of Bihar and Uttarakhand pronounced similar judgments. The Courts pronounced that even though mere qualification did not guarantee a selection of the candidates, the commission could not leave the advertised posts vacant. 

Despite repeated orders to the Centre, the vacancies for 2015 are still not completed. In the case of 2018, RTIs were filed by the students as well. In a response from the PMO, it was said that the seats had been left vacant owing to the absence of suitable candidates to fill the posts. On the contrary, when MP Jasbir Gill asked the same question in Parliament, the reply he received was that the pending posts had been carried forward, meaning these had been added to the following year’s vacancy. 

Long protests have left the students exhausted and made them settle on a belief that they would not be able to serve the country. Suchen, a student from the Northeastern state of Assam, was in the protests hoping to get a uniform while his family dealt with their house immersed in knee-deep water during the floods in 2022. Not just this, but several female students also had to deal with taunts from their neighbours and relatives. 

Anita, a student from West Bengal, ran away from her house and somehow made it to the hunger strike happening in Nagpur. Her mother and brother back home had to suffer the brunt of the taunts from relatives who spared no card in humiliating the family. “They constantly spoke ill about me, said that I had fled with a boy of another caste to get married. Ever since I came back, my family has been suffering from a complete social boycott," she said. These candidates NewsClick spoke with scored a few marks less than the cutoff. 

Apart from the 4,000 seats that need to be filled, the Centre also has left vacant a large number of seats under the ex-servicemen quota category. The notification mentions that if the seats under this quota are left vacant, these would be distributed under other categories, but this has not been done. 

The candidates of SSC GD 2018 are still protesting now and then, hoping to get the completion of vacancies as promised by the government.