A long queue of candidates is waiting for their appointments even after the government of Gujarat started the recruitment process for the post of notary, one-and-half years back.
Over 20,000 candidates are waiting for the results till date.
Earlier, the state legal department had issued an advertisement for appointment of 1,600 notaries across different districts of Gujarat in March 2021. The government received more than 20,000 applications.
In the process, the applications were scrutinised and interviews were conducted.
The legal department had conducted the interviews in ten different phases across different districts of the state. However, the appointment letters have not been issued to date. Even after being approached, no response was made by the government.
Customarily, the government appoints notaries as and when required in the department. The latest recruitment will be done after a gap of two years. The legal department had to postpone the recruitment due to the Covid situation. To qualify as a notary, one should be a member of the Indian Legal Service under the Central Government and should be practicing as an advocate for at least 10 years.
Vacancies in various districts totalling 1,600 were announced by the government.
“Ahmedabad witnessed the highest number of 125 vacancies for which more than 5,000 people had applied,” a senior official of the legal department said- “While there were 53 posts in Gandhinagar district, 121 in Rajkot, 124 in Surat and 139 in Vadodara.”
One of the candidates while speaking to a reporter said, “Many of my colleagues have applied for the post, but nothing seems to be moving. We do not want to make representations, as it might hurt our prospects of getting selected,” he said.
Another candidate from Bhavnagar alleged that there is a large scale of corruption and so the process is being delayed. “I appeared for the interview and it went well, but I am sceptical about my selection,” he said.
“The delay is being caused due to the influx of a large number of applications that need to be processed. Two teams of three officials have been formed in each district. One team has been given the responsibility to scrutinise the documents and the other team is taking care of the interview details. It might take two more months to finalise the process, he said.
Meanwhile, president of the Gujarat Notaries Association, Dhiresh T Shah expressed, “On one hand, the government is talking about employment aspects and on the other hand, it is not issuing appointment letters. More than 20,000 people are awaiting results. Interviews have been conducted, so why has there been a delay?”
