Take Army help to hold job tests, Calcutta High Court tells LIC

ASANSOL: In a telling comment on the lack of jobs in Bengal and the political jostling to corner the few that are on offer, the Calcutta high court on Tuesday directed Life Insurance Corporation of India to take the help of the Army and police to hold a recruitment examination for clerical posts.

The exam was completed in the rest of the country in 2011 and those who qualified have been inducted into LIC. But repeated attempts to hold it in LIC Asansol division have been thwarted by 32 ineligible candidates backed by two factions of INTTUC, the Trinamool Congress's trade union wing. Of the 55 valid applicants, one died while the imbroglio persisted.

Embarrassed by the unprecedented court order, INTTUC is now blaming CPM's trade union wing, CITU, for the impasse. But few are buying this defence since its two trade union factions — one controlled by labour minister Malay Ghatak and the other by INTTUC heavyweight Dola Sen — have been openly trading blows over the issue.

Sources said Ghatak and Sen’s men had repeatedly intimidated LIC officials against holding the exam unless their candidates were allowed to appear. The exam was conducted elsewhere following an SC di rective to allow the corpora tion's part-time employees who had served for five years and had valid documents to be given a chance to be inducted.

With two front-ranking Tri namool leaders being involved in the tussle, the police did not provide protection to hold the exam. On one occasion, the ex am had to be cancelled at the eleventh hour after permission to hold it at a certain venue was withheld. Trinamool also did not allow LIC to shift the venue from Asansol to Kolkata.

Frustrated with the repeated failures to hold the exam and fearing a contempt-ofcourt ruling, the Asansol division manager moved the high court, leading to Tuesday's directive by Justice Sanjeeb Banerjee. LIC officials said now they would go the Army as well as the Burdwan SP.